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The Mid-South 

And Its Builders 



BEING THE STORY OF THE 
DEVELOPMENT AND A 
FORECAST OF THE FUTURE 
OF THE RICHEST AGRICUL- 
TURAL REGION IN THE 
WORLD 

EDITOR 
C. P. J. MOONEY 

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 

E. M. Holmes F. D. Beneke 

Geo. L. Fossick E. N. Lowe 

W. C. Watson 

Secretary, C. E. Nichols 



PUBLISHED BY 

MID-SOUTH BIOGRAPHIC AND HISTORICAL 
ASSOCIATION 




THOMAS W. BRIGGS COMPANY 

DIRECTORS 

MEMPHIS, TENN. 

1920 



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fllllMIIU MIMIKttlttllllMlrlllllllllMIHIIIIMIItlMMIIIMtMIUIIinlllttllM IMItlllUIIII It M (tt I lit 1 1 rtl 1 1 J I II 1 1 M 1 1 1 II 1 1 1 tl I m M M tl Ml ItM 1 1 tit I Ml 1 1 II I ir«l I i 1 1 1 U f 1 1 1 r ■ f'^?^^^ '>5~ > V 







COPYRIGHT. 1920, 

BY 

THOMAS W. BR1GGS COMPANY 



JUL 1 1 1922 I ^ 



©CU681818 



§ 



/ v 




Jforetoorb 

l HIS book is designed as a permanent and lasting 
history of the development of the marvelous coun- 
try in the heart of the lower Mississippi Valley, 
which those who live within it call the Mid-South. 
The history of this region runs back to the gen- 
eration of men who were in the fullness of youth 
when Columbus was in the gloom of the evening of his life. 

The cross currents of the growth and civilization of North 
America have swept back and forth through it. Its people bore a 
hand in the upbuilding of the Republic. No other region has so 
marvelously and so splendidly developed within the last fifty years. 
No other region in the United States is richer in promise for future 
prosperity and happiness. 

The forward move of the Mid-South during the last quarter of 
a century is due to a completion of the levees, to the cutting away 
of timber, to the completion of transportation lines, to a more inten- 
sive cultivation of soil. 

It is the purpose of this book to set forth the unique things that 
have made the Mid-South great and to tell the story of the work 
of some of its splendid men and women. 

This book is designed for the library of the states and the uni- 
versities, Historical Associations, Chambers of Commerce and for 
the use of the editors of the larger newspapers of the United 
States, Canada and Great Britain. The articles have been prepared 
by experts in their lines, the material has been carefully selected 
and the utmost pains have been taken to assure accuracy in descrip- 
tion and statement of facts. 

The editor is grateful to those who have made the publication of 
The Mid-South and Its Builders possible. 

Memphis, Tennessee, 1920. 



sY 




T! 



BUSINESS « TRADES' • AGRICULTURE • PROFESSIONS • COMMERCE! 



The Mid-South in History 

By C . P . J . M o one y 




)HE story of the Mid-South, in its procession of men, the 
march of events and the changing of conditions is filled with 
dramatic interest. The splendid region had its historic begin- 
ning when the seats of civilization were changing from East 
to West. 

Hernando DeSoto and his conquistadores stood on the 
Chickasaw Bluffs and overlooked the mighty Mississippi in 1541. From that 
day forward all the cross currents and struggle of men and nations for progress 
and for a higher civilization swept through this valley. The beginnings of 
things in the Mid-South were close to the endings of things with some of the 
nations of Eastern Europe and Western Asia that were burning out. 

It was less than a hundred years from the fall of Constantinople when the 
banner of Christendom was hauled down from St. Sophia and the Crescent 
floated from its dome to the march of DeSoto from Florida to Alabama and 
Mississippi, through Tennessee and Arkansas. 

The Ambassadors of Brandenburg and Anhalt were calling on Luther. John 
Calvin was developing his system of philosophy and religion. There were 
no plays of the immortal Shakespeare. He had not been born. 

There were men with DeSoto who may have served with Bayard. Henry 
VIII was changing wives and a year later sent Catherine Howard to the block. 
In that same year Francis I of France, who greeted Henry of England on the 
Field of the Cloth of Gold, died. On that historic meeting spot, nearly four 
hundred years ago, where armed knights tilted and where silken-clad ladies 
gathered, sons of the Mid-South in 1918 hurled themselves against the lines of the 
Hohenzollerns, rulers of an Empire which had its fling at life, terrified the 
world and perished within the time of the generation of men. 

Before DeSoto came, the civilization, under which Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, 
Chaldea and Egypt were the beauty spots and the garden spots of the world, 
had been swept away by the onrush of men from the desert near Aden and 
by other men who came down from the roofs of Asia with death and chaos in 
their train. 

The discovery of America was ordered by Providence. The yellow races of 
men had so multiplied that it was necessary that Europe people more land with 
white men and women so that the human equilibrium could be maintained, and 
into the Western Continent these men came just as children of Moses swept 
out of Egypt into the Promised Land. 

The development of America was a well ordered part of the eternal scheme 
of things. The rise of the south and the flowering of the Mid-South is a part 

5 



of that evolution marking human progress, and though DeSoto came and went 
and left behind him faint traces of his journey he did leave imprints of the 
method in his plan which were of use to those that followed him. He came 
northward and westward from Florida. He followed the courses of the smaller 
rivers. He crossed over from the high grounds of the Upper Tombigbee and 
drove towards the river, blazing a line which today is followed by one of the iron 
roads of commerce. 

It was fit that he should find the heart of the South in the heart of the 
Mid-South. It was the place of the crossing of the Aborigines. Today it is the 
place of the crossing by the means of two great bridges of millions of tons of 
freight and millions of men and women out of the west into the southeast and 
out of the east into the boundless west. 

After the death of DeSoto not for one hundred and thirty years did a white 
man, so far as history records, move across what is now the upper part of Mis- 
sissippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. Europe was largely engaged in developing 
and reforming her own states. Richelieu was creating France. The pioneers of 
southern Germany were moving out from the reaches of the Baltic and strug- 
gling to establish Teutonic solidarity from the Vosges to the Polish border. 

Even before DeSoto saw the Mississippi, Magellan's ships had gone around 
the world and the currents of commerce began to change from the channels to 
which they had run for centuries. 

Portugal had established a foothold in the far Indies, but the future fields 
for exploitation were to the west. During this period the mighty struggle 
between Spain and England for world supremacy took place, with France allied 
with one and then with the other. The fate of the Armada decided that Spain 
should not dominate the world. England abandoned her insular policy and bid 
for the mastery of the seas. 

Spain took over all of South and Central America except that which was 
left to Portugal, but Spain did not drive her forces along the path marked out 
by DeSoto. 

When the struggle finally settled down to a steady campaign we find Spain 
seeking to drive north from Mexico, England taking over part of the Atlantic 
Seaboard from the Dutch and holding all for herself from Florida to Maine. 

The sons of France crowded into Canada, others touched Biloxi and then 
began the century struggle between France and England for the mastery of the 
Mississippi Valley, with Spain, a beaten contender, hoping for an opportunity 
to come again into dominion over the region traversed by the first conquistador. 

We find the French driving north from New Orleans, Mobile and southward 
from out of Canada through the Lakes and down the Mississippi. One hun- 
dred years before England, the Colonies or the Republic gave thought to the 
rich lands west of the Alleghanies we find French missionaries and colonists 
going up and down the Mississippi. In 1673 Marquette passed down in front 
of the Bluffs of Memphis and Helena. A few years later LaSalle, one of the 
romantic figures among the world's explorers, came and set up claims for 
Louis XIV, the Grand Monarch. 



LaSalle had a magnificent vision. In his mind's eye he saw the flag of 
France, the symbol of the rule of his country, at Quebec, Montreal, at the con- 
fluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi and on these bluffs down to the mouth 
of the Great River. It was a glorious dream, but after another century the same 
flag which gave way to the banners of Spain and England was hauled down 
forever. The Mid-South became under the Stars and Stripes a part of the 
young Republic. Along the Mississippi it was decided that the English speaking 
people, the people of the blue eyes and light hair, and not the Latins, with their 
traditions of Caesar and Charles V should populate this country. In the proc- 
ess of these changes there ran a thread of romance, chivalry, adventure and 
tragedy. 

A few years after the French came to Natchez the greatest colonial enter- 
prise ever conceived had its headquarters in this Mid-South, near Arkansas 
Post. 

John Law worked out a plan of colonizing and cultivating the banks of the 
Mississippi and Law opened before the eyes of the French people a prospect of 
trading in gold, furs and products of the soil over a region larger than all of 
Europe. So well did the French people think of this enterprise that they invested 
almost $400,000,000 in it. Law's plan was sound. He failed because he lost 
the confidence of his countrymen. 

The Hudson Bay Company and the East India Company were similar enter- 
prises and they succeeded. Even before Law came, the French built Fort 
Prud'homme on the bluffs and Fort Assumption at Memphis, thereby coming in 
conflict with the grants which Charles the First of England gave to his subjects 
of land running due west from Virginia and the Carolinas across the river. 

It may be interesting in the story of this Valley which is so closely inter- 
woven with the story of the contending great European powers to note that the 
first white settlement west of the Mississippi, except those in the far southwest, 
was made in the Mid-South at Arkansas Post. This was in 1688. 

That the Mississippi Valley should join with the regions along the Atlantic 
Seaboard and make for a common destiny was clear at the close of our Revo- 
lution. France and the colonies were allies. During the war men talked of 
France holding the valley west of the river and the colonies controlling the 
regions to the east, but so soon as English speaking people began to go down 
the Ohio, Cumberland and the Mississippi the natural design that one people 
must control all was developed. 

There was talk of free navigation, but there could be no free navigation of 
the river so long as one nation controlled the mouth and another the stream 
higher up. 

When France helped us beat the English, France and Spain both made it 
inevitable that they should move out of the west and give the young nation 
room to grow. Before 1803 far-seeing men knew that America must control 
this valley either by purchase or by conquest. So in 1803 France surrendered 
sovereignty in this valley and a few years later Spain gave up all color of claims 
to South Mississippi and Florida and contented herself by holding Texas and 
lands as far up as Oregon. 



France and Spain left their imprint on this region. It is in the name of 
villages, rivers and counties. In Memphis we see it in the name of Gayoso, in 
Arkansas we note it in the St. Francis, L'Anguille and New Gascony. Higher 
up Cape Girardeau tells us that once the Frenchman was there. Here the 
Bayoso Gayoso is a reminder that Spain's hope of dominion was shattered. 

We see the traces of French and Spanish laws in land titles. Now and then 
the transfer of land in Eastern Arkansas must be referred to Washington where 
the President of the United States will clear a title by stating that claims to 
the land were surrendered in a treaty made between the United States and his 
Royal Highness, the King of Spain. 

The Spanish and the French also left behind them a little touch of poetry 
and romance which to this day flavor the lives of our people. 

Whence came the English speaking people into this Mid-South? Before and 
after the Revolution a few bold spirits were pushing out from Pennsylvania 
and New York into Ohio. Men from Virginia went out into the Kentucky 
region. Boone crossed over from the Carolinas into the northwest. Down 
from Virginia through the East Tennessee country other men came. After the 
Revolution these pathfinders were followed by families. At the close of the 
century we find the Middle Tennessee country and the Middle Kentucky country 
filling with people. Louisville was a great trading center and Nashville was a 
gathering place. Then down the river came others and even before the French 
and Spaniards moved out men from the upper reaches were gathering on the 
Chickasaw Bluff at Randolph, at Helena and at Vicksburg. The country was fair 
to look upon. It startled the imagination of Burr and men of his sort until 
they hoped to build it up as a thing apart from the old colonies. 

It is a striking fact that the pioneers and builders of this region drew the 
best and the sturdiest from all of the older states. 

African slavery and the cotton gin had made the lowland planters of the 
Carolinas all-powerful. The sturdy and independent hard-working men of the 
hills felt a restraint that they knew was not fair to them. They wanted a free 
region. They were moved by that impulse which had been common to men on 
the border of civilization for centuries. They wanted more room and more 
freedom, so down into the higher regions of the Mississippi they crowded. Out 
of the mountains they passed over East and Middle Tennessee and came 
into West Tennessee and into Arkansas. They moved into Kentucky as well 
as into the lower states. But if the hardy and if the poor came they were 
quickly followed by the well-to-do. 

Slavery was not profitable in the high country, but it was profitable in the 
black lands of Alabama and along the water courses farther west. 

Before the war of 1812 there were fusing into this region currents of men 
and women — the best that could come from Georgia, the Carolinas and from the 
upper Ohio region. 

The second generation of those who had moved out into East and Middle 
Tennessee, into the Tennessee Valley and into Middle Kentucky again moved 
farther west. 

8 



At this period transportation began to develop in this region and was the 
chief controlling factor in its growth. Out of the upper rivers came the flat* 
boats. Even before the steamboat came into use there was a larger commerce 
on the Mississippi than on the Hudson. 

There was a cry in the east for canals. There were natural canals in the 
west. If the railroads had not been invented our river system would have devel- 
oped this region faster than any other of the Union. 

Our second war with Great Britain found the people of the Mid-South ready 
to bear a hand. The region had already so developed that a state consciousness 
had asserted itself. It is one of the proud traditions that riflemen of Kentucky 
and Tennessee had much to do with the defeat of the British veterans at New 
Orleans. Men from Mississippi, calling themselves Mississippians, were in that 
same struggle. 

Already the great region west of the Alleghanies had found itself. Then that 
region covered by North Mississippi, West Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas 
had so shaped its fortunes that its people were active, energetic and filled with 
pride of territory along with the pride of race. This race pride was logical 
because the pioneers of this region were a cross-section of the strongest of all 
the classes of the older states. 

If there was not the coldness or austerity of the Puritan there was the 
solemnity of the Covenantor, coming through the Scotch and Irish from the 
Carolinas, with the joyousness and an abandon of those who had come out to 
Virginia because they had followed the ill-starred fortunes of the Stuarts. 

Men of education had come among us. In all the older homes today 
you will find books that were printed before the beginning of the last century 
and paintings that were the work of trained hands. Furniture and other 
household trappings showed in their selection and arrangement cultured and 
educated minds. 

The Mid-South took on a definite growth after the war of 1812. The 
Indians were in the way in Mississippi and in West Tennessee, but in spite of 
this there was progress. 

Mississippi was filled by men of culture and also by other men who if not 
educated in letters were strong in character. 

West Tennessee received more men and women from Middle Tennessee. 
Arkansas began to fill with English speaking people. Litigation, incident to the 
land titles granted by Spain, was pushed. 

The splendid region known as Crowley's Ridge drew a hardy class of set- 
tlers. Hot Springs became a resort for health seekers. 

In 1819 James Miller, the hero of Lundy Lane, came to Arkansas as the 
first territorial governor and Crittenden of Kentucky was a high official. 

The people of Arkansas had the proper appreciation of the press, in 1819 we 
find W. E. Woodruff publishing a paper at Arkansas Post and printing the 
latest news from London, New York and Washington, which was as much as 
three months old. The Arkansas Gazette today is still an organ of light and 
education. 



Though Tennessee was a state almost from the close of the Revolution, West 
Tennessee grew along with Mississippi and Arkansas. Mississippi became a 
state in 1817, Memphis was incorporated in 1819 and Arkansas became a 
territory in 1819. These facts show the close unity of the Mid-South and that 
the development and growth for Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi run 
along parallel lines. 

Splendid men took a part in the affairs of these states in those days. If 
West Tennessee attracted the attention of Jackson, Overton and Winchester, 
Mississippi rejoiced in equally strong men. 

The first judges of the Supreme Court of Mississippi were Shields of Dela- 
ware, Taylor of Pennsylvania, Hampton of South Carolina, Ellis of Virginia, 
Clarke of Pennsylvania, Stockton of New Jersey and Child of New England. 
Later, Maine sent to Mississippi Prentiss, and Quitman, a chancellor of that 
state, was from New York. 

Into the Mid-South came the best of the old families of the east and the 
northeast and pioneers, sons of men who had fought the British, fought the 
Indians and again fought the British. 

Agriculture flourished because there was river transportation. Cotton was 
profitably grown because slaves were here to cultivate it and New Orleans and 
Mobile were ports easy of access. But if there was growth along the Missis- 
sippi there was also a splendid development in the valley of the Tennessee and 
in the upper reaches of the Alabama and Tombigbee. 

Be it remembered that if Jackson, Memphis, Little Rock and Helena were 
on the forming maps, that the regions around Aberdeen, Columbus and Pontotoc 
were fast developing. 

The wild furor of inflation and land speculation did not prove so disastrous 
in this region as it did in the upper latitudes. 

There was a business sense among our merchants and traders which enabled 
them to establish a banking system founded upon solid basis. 

The culture of many men in this region had a reaction in a demand for 
schools. In some families there were tutors and in others a teaching governess. 
In the smaller towns there were male schoolmasters who taught after the man- 
ner of O'Hara, Barry and Forsythe of Kentucky. At the outbreak of the Civil 
War there was an academy, institute, a seminary or college in most of the 
county seats. 

The town of LaGrange in West Tennessee, to which the first railroad was 
projected from Memphis, was the seat of a famous school. 

Before the Civil War there were schools of more than local reputation at 
Holly Springs. Long before the war there was a school building in the midst of 
Court Square in Memphis. 

Men like Waddell, the elder Holmes and Byars were in many of the counties 
of Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. Holmes came out from Pennsylvania 
as a missionary and after teaching and preaching near Pontotoc went to Tipton 
County where he established the Mountain Academy. The struggle for educa- 
tion was characteristic of the people of this region even before the Mexican 
War. This struggle found the sons of Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky 

10 



ready to bear a mighty hand. It appealed to their old spirit of adventure, and 
they returned with larger ambitions and a broader perspective. 

Soon after the Mexican War a great convention of progressive men from 
the entire south was held in Memphis. The transportation problem had become 
interesting. America now controlled all the lands from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific and her people began to think along transcontinental lines. 

Throughout Mississippi and West Tennessee the effort for polite education 
was marked. The same was true in Central Arkansas. Young men, even in 
the early days, were sent to eastern universities. Many went to private colleges 
that clustered around Lexington, Danville, Bardstown and Lebanon in Ken- 
tucky and certainly the University of Virginia drew its quota. 

Some of the young scholars of the far east came down to this region to 
teach ; later they became lawyers or public men and left their impress on the 
region. Prentiss came out of New England. George D. Prentice, the editor, 
came from the east to Kentucky. Among the early editors of the Memphis 
newspapers was a member of a distinguished New York family. 

There was a certain flavor in this genteel education that made for nicety in 
speech and in manner, a high regard for personal honor and a respect for woman. 
Even today in some of the older libraries in the Mid-South one will find the 
classics, Blair's Rhetoric, copies of Milton, Shakespeare, Young's "Night 
Thoughts," Pollock's "Course of Time," Abbott's "Life of Napoleon" and 
Hume's "History of England." The struggle for education was characteristic 
of our people before the Mexican War. 

The contest with Mexico attracted sons of Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky 
and Arkansas and they bore in it a great part. The country was filled with old 
men who were with Jackson at New Orleans. The sons of these men, inspired 
by what their fathers had done, were eager for an accounting with Mexico. 
Their resentment was fired by the massacre of Crockett and Bowie, both of 
whom had gone into Texas from this region. Another Tennessean, Sam Hous- 
ton, had already made a name for himself in the southwest. When these young 
men came back from Mexico they had larger ambitions and a broader perspec- 
tive. They saw the United States, a nation, covering the entire sweep of the 
nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Fifty years before France had drawn 
out of the valley, Spain which retired from Florida in 1820 had transferred its 
color of title to Mexico and the children of those who stood in the way of 
Spanish or French conquest in the Mid-South contributed mightily to annexing 
to the United States what Mexico had acquired by revolution. 

At the close of the Mexican wars the rivers of the Mid-South were crowded 
with boats, but these natural arteries did not meet the demands of the people. 
Land transportation was needed. Short lines of railroad were under construc- 
tion. A road had been built from Memphis, Tennessee, to LaGrange, its 
objective being the Tennessee River, and railways were projected towards the 
west. The military road uniting the southwest with the east passed from Mem- 
phis towards Little Rock, then towards Fort Smith. 

John C. Calhoun and the elder Brinkley saw the necessity for a transcon- 
tinental railway system following generally the line of the 35th parallel. A 

11 



great convention of progressive men from the entire south was held in Memphis 
in the early 50s. Calhoun was here. A barrel filled with water at the Bay of 
Charleston was brought overland and a great ceremony was made of pouring it 
into the Mississippi. The Memphis & Charleston Railway was projected and 
other roads were outlined towards the west. 

One can now go by rail from Washington to Memphis, to Little Rock and 
on westward through El Paso, thence to Los Angeles with only one change of 
trains. This accomplishment would have been a fact before 1860 except for 
the slavery question, which involved not only geography, but also climate, and 
aroused a spirit that was beyond compromise. 

The northern people wanted a development towards the west through a 
northern tier of states. The natural drift would have been through Memphis. 
The war brought it about that St. Louis became the crossing point of the great 
river. Transcontinental railway systems were projected through the upper 
trail, with the result that soon after the war there was a continuous line of rails 
from St. Louis and Chicago to the Pacific coast. Except for the Civil War much 
of the greater part of the east and west transportation would have funnelled 
through this region. Even so, the Mid-South has become in the development of 
the country the center of a mighty transportation system. Along the South- 
western Trail, along Jackson's military road from the east into the southwest, 
and into the west there are completed railway systems. The natural val'ie of 
these routes was never better demonstrated than during the World War. More 
soldiers crossed the great river at Memphis than at any other point. The test 
of war showed the logical lines and logical routes. 

But if at the close of the Mexican War there were a few miles of railway in 
the south before the opening of the Civil War one could travel by train from 
Memphis, Chattanooga, through Knoxville, through Bristol then to Richmond ; 
thence to Washington and from Washington to New York. This was the first 
great southern railway system. Another road had been built from Louisville 
through Nashville and through Northern Alabama. The Mobile & Ohio Railroad 
had already met the requirements of its name. The line from New Orleans 
north through Grand Junction was under way with regular schedules as far up 
as Jackson, Mississippi. The Little Rock and Memphis system had been 
projected. 

The opening of the Civil War found the Mid-South filled with prosperous 
people on the high ground. All over West Tennessee, Northern and East Mis- 
sissippi schools were being built, roads were being opened, courts were held on 
regular schedules, the musters attracted great crowds and the people were 
eagerly discussing politics as formerly advocated by Andrew Jackson of Ten- 
nessee as opposed to the politics preached by Henry Clay of Kentucky. 

In those days two strong parties were built up in all the southern states. 
Men of character, intelligence and education were opposing leaders. The Mem- 
phis Appeal and Arkansas Gazette daily devoted from eight to nine columns of 
their space to the discussion of political questions and, often, all of their space 
to the reporting of some speech made by some great leader. Probably in no other 
region did the law draw unto its practice men of so high attainments. With all 

12 



that there was not that ease coming from established fortunes which destroyed 
the spirit of energy and labor. Society was still developing. The spirit of youth 
was over the land. While on some of the plantations there were great colonies of 
slaves, in other regions there was a sturdy population of white men who lived 
close to the soil and who had in them the vigor and strength of the pioneer and 
the freeman who cared more for personal rights and personal freedom than the 
mere loading of property. 

So when the Civil War came, except from along the western shores of the 
Tennessee River, every one, almost, enlisted in the armies of the Confederacy. 
Some fought to defend their own region, but many marched away to the army 
of Virginia and, as the struggle waxed, they gave a splendid account of them- 
selves at first Manassas, second Manassas and at Gettysburg, where they were 
all but destroyed. 

The turning points in the Civil War were in this Mid-South. In order to 
succeed the Confederate leaders recognized that the south must not be cut in 
twain by the enemy holding the Mississippi. The strategists in charge of the 
northern army struggled from the beginning to secure a water route from St. 
Louis to the Gulf. 

So in '61 there was a fight at Belmont where Grant, dropping down the river 
from Cairo, first met an enemy which was to confront him for four years at 
Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Missionary Ridge and Petersburg and finally giving 
away at Appomattox. 

Island No. 10 in the same Mid-South was fortified heavily. In despair of 
getting through quickly by the river route, the federals struck at Fort Donelson 
in Middle Tennessee and then at Shiloh. At this Shiloh in the spring of '62 
the unprepared but brave armies of both sides met in a deadly struggle. After 
Shiloh Corinth became a place of strategy. Simultaneously with Shiloh there 
was a naval battle in front of Memphis. But not until more than a year later 
did Vicksburg surrender and Helena give occupation to Federal troops. 

A student of history of the war finds that Shiloh, Belmont and Vicksburg in 
this Mid-South were immense factors in the equation of blood and death which 
was solved two years later. 

In some counties in this region more men went to the armies than there were 
voters. Only the very young and the very old men remained at home. We 
complained of the scarcity of man-power in the World War and yet there 
were taken only the young men. 

In the Civil War the boys of sixteen and the men of sixty went in. And yet 
the women and the children, the crippled and the invalids "carried on" at home. 
This Mid-South during those four years contributed enormous supplies of cat- 
tle, horses and food to the fighting soldiers. Indeed, that splendid region of 
East Mississippi in which now cluster the thriving cities of Aberdeen, Tupelo, 
West Point and Columbus was called the "granary of the Confederacy" and the 
Confederates successfully defended and produced great supplies in it until the 
fall of '64. 

When the end came this region was prostrated, gins had been destroyed, 
fences had been burned, roads were wrecked and bridges were down. The 

13 



country was denuded of livestock ; the money of the people had gone with the 
blood of their children into the support of the Lost Cause. The white people 
were poverty stricken, the negroes were free and penniless. The victorious 
army policed the land. The tragedy of Lincoln and the vindictiveness of those 
who had fought the war in speech, but not on the battlefields, brought about a 
condition that would have broken the heart of people of less courage. 

In spite of the furies of reconstruction, in spite of the bitterness of politics 
and of the rule of strangers the rebound of the Mid-South is one of the marvels 
in the history of the state of society after wars. 

The railroads were rebuilt, men broken in fortune but not in spirit sought to 
construct others. Young men returning from the army labored at the first thing 
in sight. Passing down from the hills many of them began to open the low-- 
lands along the river. Within five years after the close of the Civil War all of 
the great trunk lines of railways now in existence were projected. Far-seeing 
men began to advocate the confining of the waters of the great river within its 
banks. Here and there it was suggested that the holding of these waters was 
a national problem. Notwithstanding the rule of the hostile party, the prac- 
tical disfranchisement of the white people and the wild orgies of office holders 
in state capitals, the Mid-South in 1873 had gathered sufficient strength to with- 
stand the panic with less loss and less suffering than were marked in the east 
and north. 

After '76 the people got their local government under their own control and 
there was orderly development interrupted only by two sweeps of pestilence, the 
causes of which science has discovered and the occurrence of which will be 
no more. 

Before 1890, competing lines of railways had been completed from Mem- 
phis to New Orleans, from Memphis to the west, from Memphis to the east 
and from Memphis to the north. The commerce of the Mid-South began to 
flow on iron rails from Chicago to the Gulf. 

The grain and livestock products of the west were funnelled through Mem- 
phis into the southeast. Memphis, Helena, Little Rock, Jackson, Tennessee, 
Clarksdale, Mississippi, and Tupelo and the other towns of the Mid-South 
were not only joined to one another by rail, but in many cases by competing lines. 

The Mid-South had prepared to come into its own. The forces of develop- 
ment and reconstruction had finally come into active play. The great bridge was 
projected across the Mississippi at Memphis. The first train ran over it in the 
spring of '92. In the meantime, the levee was completed from the Chickasaw 
Bluffs east of the river, as far south as the mouth of the Yazoo. 

Since the beginning of the century pioneers had driven into these lowlands. 
Before the war the region around Lake Washington was populated by men 
who came out from the Carolinas into Kentucky, and along the high banks of 
bayous and along the elevated shores of the river there were plantations. 

Arkansas caught the spirit of Mississippi and was determined to shut the 
waters of the great river out of the basin. Then bold spirits said that the river 
must be held to its banks all the way from Cairo to New Orleans, and in this 
good year that work has been completed. St. Francis Basin is a smiling plain 

14 



dotted with growing cities. Helena lies on the brow of Crowley's Ridge with 
the vast alluvial countries to the north and the south. 

In the Yazoo Delta men go from city to city on the highways where forty 
years ago there was a jungle cut through here and there by lazy bayous. The 
levees, railroads, and bridges across the river have been the vital artificial forces 
in the building up of this region. Its further development rests in vehicle high- 
ways and in canals. These men who first pioneered into the St. Francis Basin 
and into the Yazoo Delta were great builders. Many of them have been for- 
gotten. Some have left behind them prosperous families and great fortunes, 
others, for themselves, lost the struggle, but they contributed much for the 
benefit of their neighbors. 

The opening of the Yazoo Delta and the St. Francis Basin to cultivation is a 
romance of agricultural development like which there is no parallel, even 
in the valley of the Nile or the old lands between the Tigris and the Euphrates, 
which thousands of years ago blossomed as a garden, then died and which is 
about to be resurrected under the touch of the conquering English. 



IS 



Soil, Climate and Production 
of the Mid-South 



By C . P . J . M o o 11 e y 




J HE objective of this book is to put into type a series of facts 
that will show the territory called the Mid-South to have made 
more progress in development during the last quarter of a 
century than any other region in the United States and to 
demonstrate that no other region offers a better opportunity to 
the farmer, the merchant and the manufacturer. The Mid- 
South has the most fertile natural soil of any region in the world. No other 
region is better for living during the entire year. It is unique in moderation of 
climate, in average of rainfall and in variety of resources. 

The Mid-South is that region covering West Kentucky, West Tennessee, part 
of the Tennessee River Valley in Alabama, the northern half of Mississippi, the 
eastern half of Arkansas and southeast Missouri. It is cut in twain, north and 
south, by the Mississippi River. It is touched on the east and partly on the north 
by the Ohio and Tennessee. The Arkansas, White and the St. Francis cut 
through it west of the Mississippi. East of the great river are the Obion, 
Hatchie, Forked Deer of West Tennessee, the Tombigbee, the Yallobusha, 
Tallahatchie, Yazoo and the Sunflower. No part of the Mid-South is far away 
from a large water course. Much of it is within an easy distance of navigable 
streams. Not only is it well watered on the surface, but under a great part of 
it is a sheet of artesian water. 

The annual rainfall is higher than the average of rain in other parts of the 
Mississippi Valley. The temperature in the lower half, below Memphis, reaches 
a freezing point only during two months in the year. The heat of the summer 
is never so intense as to bring about difficulties to man or beast. One seldom 
hears of sunstroke in this region. 

The experiments of the last quarter of a century have reached a point where 
one can stand safely on the statement that the Mid-South is the richest agri- 
cultural region in the world. Two products furnish bread to the entire world, 
one is wheat, the other is rice. The Mid-South produces both. 

One product is more used than anything else for clothing and covering : that 
is cotton. The production of cotton in the Mid-South is greater in quantity and 
better in quality than in any other region in the world. 

The third element in the living economy of man and beast is corn. Corn is 
one of the Mid-South's great crops. 

16 



From Iceland to Australia men use tobacco. In the Mid-South is the heav- 
iest dark tobacco production in the world. 

In the Mid-South are vast regions where five crops of alfalfa can be har- 
vested for fifteen years. From four to six crops have been harvested annually 
in this region. In the alluvial region, in the St. Francis and the Yazoo Basin, no 
soil preparation in the way of inoculation or lime need to be made. The elements 
for the growth of alfalfa are already here. 

The Mid-South is the natural region of the Bermuda grass and Iespedeza. 

After the heavy field crops the tremendous element in living is the home and 
the commercial garden. In the Mid-South there is an enormous trucking indus- 
try. Out of it every year go hundreds of trains of tomatoes, strawberries, sweet 
and Irish potatoes and all other vegetables peculiar to a temperate zone. An 
index to the unique productivity of this region is the statement that after one 
has harvested a crop of wheat one can plant on the same land and harvest before 
frost either a crop of corn or cowpeas. One can gather a crop of early potatoes 
or reap a crop of oats and gather a second crop before the winter from the 
same soil. 

After food and clothing the next necessity of man is housing and furniture. 
The Mid-South is filled with hardwood timber and in the lower reaches are 
great forests of pine and brakes of cypress. 

The city of Memphis, which is in the heart of the Mid-South, is the center 
of the largest hardwood manufacturing district in the world. The region in the 
towns adjacent are filled with saw mills and timber camps. 

After field crops and timber, an industry which has rapidly become impor- 
tant is that of livestock. It has so developed that the finest herds of blooded 
cattle and blooded hogs are in this region. The national and international cham- 
pions at cattle shows have been produced in West Tennessee and in Mississippi. 
Champion blooded hogs of the Western Continent are here. 

What men grow and what men produce must be either consumed or sent 
into other parts of the world. This makes transportation necessary. This 
region is bisected by transcontinental railways and by lines extending from the 
Lakes to the Gulf. 

In this region there is a railway within a few miles of the door of every 
citizen. There are only two counties in this region where there is no road ; one 
of these is served by a river. On either side of the Mississippi is a network of 
railways running north and south. West of the river are lines running into the 
northwest, the west and the southwest. East of the river are through trains 
reaching the eastern states, the Atlantic coast states and the east Gulf states. 

From the center of the Mid-South one is over night from St. Louis, Chicago, 
Louisville, Cincinnati, Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, Fort Worth and Kansas 
City. The east and west commerce of the lower Mississippi Valley funnels 
across the two great bridges spanning the Mississippi at Memphis. 

Post-war era of railway building began with the departure of the Federal 
forces. It was brought to its present completeness after it was seen that the 
Mississippi River levee system was an assured success. 

17 



In navigable streams, in soil, climate and transportation the Mid-South is 
singularly blessed, showing variety of resources and products. These two cross 
sections are interesting. East of the Mississippi, south from the Ohio, one 
passes through the wheat and tobacco lands of West Kentucky into the tobacco 
and cotton lands of West Tennessee, through the trucking sections of West 
Tennessee, then through the high country of West Tennessee with its herds of 
pedigreed cattle, then into Mississippi down through the black belt and prairie 
country where cotton, corn, alfalfa, fine stock and dairying thrive. East and 
west one passes from the cotton, small grain, livestock and tobacco country of 
West Tennessee into the lands of East Arkansas where cotton and corn are 
profusely grown in the St. Francis Basin and in the White, Arkansas River coun- 
try. At the end of the sector is the Arkansas rice region covering all the counties 
of Grand Prairie. Extending northward on either side of the Mississippi and 
along the other rivers is the alluvial region now protected by levees which 
grows anything resulting from intelligent labor. 

Twenty-five years ago the greater part of the Mid-South was given over to 
cotton. It was a one-crop country. The levees were incomplete and the rail- 
road's system was not worked out. The lumbermen came and began to clear 
the forest. An acre of land cleared of timber, was the more valuable because 
it was immediately ready for agriculture. The completion of the Yazoo levee 
was followed by the opening of the Delta of that name. Agriculture became 
certain and men began to plant accordingly. In the St. Francis Basin progress 
was slower. Finally a dirt wall protected it from the Mississippi and it imme- 
diately began to attract investors and planters. A few years later the culture 
of rice became possible in Arkansas, because there was a great sheet of artesian 
water in the Grand Prairie country. Then the Crowley Ridge country came 
into its own for general farming and livestock. 

It was found that alfalfa and other hays grew well in eastern Mississippi, 
with the result that the prairie country and the Tombigbee country became highly 
productive. Agricultural colleges had sent home the gospel of soil conservation 
and the rebuilding of the high country began. 

The propaganda for diversified agriculture and livestock was instituted. The 
agricultural colleges, the better educated farmers and men of vision began to 
appreciate what this country was and is, with the result that we have today a 
record of development unequaled for the same period by any other territory. 

There has never been a boom in this Mid-South and there has never been 
an era of wild land speculation. No town has grown then flattened out. 

Today we find this Mid-South blessed with a good and growing school 
system. High schools are in the country as well as the city. In this region one 
great agricultural school gives special attention to the things necessary for our 
people. This year finds the cities being drawn together by good roads. In 
almost every country there is a community center and yet the country is only 
one-third open to the plow and it is estimated that eighty per cent of this region 
is plowable land. 

The foundation for a great future has been solidly built. The soil is by 
nature rich. In the 12,000 square miles of alluvial land the washings of the 

18 



upper rivers, lime and decayed vegetation, have come down for a thousand 
years. One man bored a well in the alluvial region and 250 feet down the drill 
passed through a cypress log. 

Commercial fertilizers will never be necessary for this wonderful river 
country. 

In the high country of West Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi the soil is 
easily tillable, naturally rich and quickly responds to a generous treatment. 

In eastern Mississippi there is a black land which is the remains of a water 
basin which was there thousands of years ago. 

In Arkansas the Crowley Ridge country is high and fertile, adapted to grazing 
and general farming. Further over one passes through the bottoms of the White, 
east and west of which the soil gives growth to rice. Further east we have the 
marvelous Arkansas River basin country in the midst of which is Little Rock, 
the splendid capital of that state, and lower down the Pine Bluff country. Below 
the end of Crowley's Ridge, on the shoulder of which is the splendid city of 
Helena, is another vast reach of alluvial land along the Mississippi River as far 
south as Louisiana. In this region the last frosts are usually around the first of 
March and the first frost along in October. This tremendous advantage enables 
the people of the Mid-South to keep their cattle and hogs in the open, if they 
wish, ten months in the year. 

In most of this region there is a natural pasture for nine months and cover 
crops can be planted so as to afford grazing the other three months. Cattle need 
protection in the winter only from the rain. In this region hogs can be grown 
more cheaply than in any other part of the country, also there is food in the field 
for them the year around. Bearing these facts in mind one can see how much 
more cheaply hogs, cattle and sheep can be produced in this region than in the 
hog and cattle countries further north. 

The greater part of the future prosperity of the Mid-South rests in live- 
stock. The certainty of the results are proven by what has already been 
accomplished. 

A stranger would be amazed at the extent of manufacturing in the Mid-South. 
It is clustered over with hardwood lumber finishing mills. Dressed lumber, sashes, 
doors, certain sorts of furniture are among the products of our wood-working 
factories. 

The Mid-South is the center of the nation's largest output of cottonseed oil 
and this amazing industry is gradually functioning into a condition where from 
it there comes an enormous supply of food for man and beast. The hulls and 
the cakes are now exported to the dairies of other lands. Some day the cattle 
industry will be so developed that this great food will be consumed close to 
the mills. Out of this same cottonseed one gets the basic material for oleo- 
margarine and the vegetable lards that are now big factors in the nation's house- 
hold economy. 

The heavy productions in the Mid-South are cotton, livestock, lumber, rice, 
corn, cowpeas, hay and tobacco. In manufacturing there are the finishing of 
lumber, cottonseed products and mixed feeds. The quick transportation has 
enabled an enormous development of the early vegetable and fruit industry. 

19 



It is coming to pass that trainloads of strawberries, radishes, beans and turnips 
start out of the extreme southern part of the Mid-South during the last week 
in February, then the shipments to points higher up continue until the vegetable 
and small fruit harvest is in full activity in West Tennessee. 

So all the early vegetables and fruits that can be grown in this region find a 
ready market in St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, Minneapolis, Louisville, Cin- 
cinnati, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh before the early vegetables in the 
neighborhood of these great cities can be taken from the fields. 

The time is not far ofT when the vegetable and fruit industry in the Mid- 
South will be equal in volume to either the cotton or to the lumber industry. 
The development of the diversified agricultural activities of the Mid-South is 
beyond the experimental stage. The railroads are here for the transportation 
and no other part of the United States offers such a soil output in duration of 
growing months, in variety of things grown and in strength of production as 
does the region lying east and west of the Mississippi River 150 miles north and 
south of the city of Memphis. 

The day will come when this region will be the heart of the richest produc- 
tive territory of the United States. 



After this sweep through four centuries wherein we have studied the races 
that have held dominion in this region we are able to get an accurate measure 
of the quality of men and women who now hold the cities and lands of the 
Mid-South. It is going to be the most productive region in the United States. 
The soil gives natural advantages. It required energy, patience and courage to 
bring out of the land the best results. 

Before the Civil War Eastern Mississippi, that splendid country around 
Aberdeen, Columbus, West Point and Tupelo had been brought to a high state of 
cultivation for those days. The black lands of East Mississippi were not subjected 
to overflow. The bottoms of the rivers when cleared yielded abundantly. 

Clustered around these cities there were families whose imprints are well 
defined on the structure of the history of Mississippi. Passing through one can 
note the high state of culture in the character of the splendid old homes. 

Higher up in West Tennessee around Bolivar, Old Purdy, Corinth and 
around Jackson and Madison County the country has been opened by a sturdy 
stock of pioneers. The people lived comfortably and some of them elegantly. 
The sons and daughters went to the schools in Jackson or at LaGrange, while 
still others sought education in the older colleges in the north and east. The 
same is true as to families along the White and Arkansas River around Helena 
and higher up through the Crowley Ridge country. Little Rock, itself, had 
become a city of culture and boasted of a splendid college. It was doing for 
the youth of that state what Oxford in Mississippi was doing for those east of 
the river. Here and there along the Mississippi in the St. Francis Basin and 
in the Delta on knolls above the overflow, were baronial estates owned by men, 
who had come down from the higher countries, saw a vision of the future and 
determined to clear the low country and have it for their own. 

20 



The Civil War tore this splendid social fabric to pieces. Federals and Con- 
federates camped throughout West Tennessee and Northern Mississippi. Armies 
out of the upper states met southern soldiers in Helena and Pine Bluff. There 
was a constant collision of small bands in the upper counties of the Arkansas 
and along the river there were the battles of Belmont, Island Ten, Fort Pillow, 
Memphis, on the Helena front and Vicksburg just as there were further to the 
east in Mississippi collisions at Corinth, Holly Springs and sharp conflicts around 
Tupelo. When the struggle ended there was not a neighborhood, not a village 
that was left unmarked. 

For ten years after the war there was a fight for existence, a struggle against 
annihilation, a supreme effort to keep the white civilization from going down 
under the black rule. Then came the pestilence, but after that the heavens were 
filled with rainbows. Those who had survived the struggle took on new courage 
and those from strange land began to see the possibilities of the country. The 
schools were rebuilt, roads were constructed and the levees began to throw their 
strong shoulders against the river, then the bridges across the Mississippi were 
built. 

The lumber countries of Michigan, Wisconsin and Northern Indiana had 
become bare and strong men of the forest came into this Mid-South and were 
staggered at the possibilities in timber. 

Before '90, men from Indiana and the other states around the Great Lakes 
were cutting trees and sending the hardwood lumber into northern cities. It 
was found that as fast as the land was cleared it was the more valuable because 
of its natural richness. A cutover country in the north is a barren country and 
a cutover country in the Mid-South invites the plow. 

The discovery of the wonderful qualities of cottonseed led to another great 
development in this region which outstripped others. 

In the early '90s the work of the builders had become manifest to the world. 
More capital came in, more people came in and before the Spanish-American 
War the production of raw agriculture and timber material from the territory 
adjacent to Memphis became a great factor in the wealth of the nation. 

Until the levees were completed and the bridge built over the river there 
was steady progress marked by an occasional backset, but in 1900 it was realized 
that no region could be a one-crop region ; that no city could depend upon one 
article, and be permanently prosperous. Before that time cotton, because it was a 
source of credit, was the only standby of the farmer. The timber man himself 
depended for revenue on the unfinished product. 

Around 1900 it was demonstrated that cattle could be economically grown 
in the prairie country of East Mississippi and that Crowley's Ridge afforded 
fine pasture. 

Someone developed rice on the Grand Prairie of Arkansas. The lespedeza 
was found to be a great cattle food. 

The newspapers, the agricultural school men and the far-sighted business 
men began the campaign for a more general agriculture and more varieties. Of 
manufacture they built on to what the pioneer builders before them had con- 
structed. They came to know their country's possibilities ; they preached a new 

21 



gospel. It was a plea for diversification, for variety and produce in produc- 
tion. They proved by experiment what the soil could do. They developed the 
lowly gum tree into a timber as much sought after as the disappearing poplar 
and the expensive mahogany. 

Men like Duryea and Ames in West Tennessee, both of them from the North, 
Davis, Ames and Clarke of Mississippi, Lee Wilson of Arkansas, Banks of 
Memphis, Alf Stone of the Delta and the rice growers of Grand Prairie showed 
by example what might be done in livestock, in alfalfa, corn and rice. Their 
example was followed and in spite of the drawbacks of the last levee breaks and 
with a touch of boll weevil to the far south, the opening of the great war 
found this region bounding forward towards a condition which, when realized, 
will make it the most productive and affording the best opportunity for creating 
wealth of any country in the world. 



22 



The Geology of the Mid-South 

By Prof. E. N. Lowe 



DEFINITION — The Gulf border of the North American conti- 

D nent has not always occupied its present position. At present the 

/aM Gulf sweeps in a broad gentle landward convexity from eastern 
jj^/ Texas to peninsular Florida, this general convexity being 
interrupted at the mouth of the Mississippi River by a pro- 
nounced southeastward projection of land. Toward the close 
of the middle age of geological history (technically called the Mesozoic Era) 
this interior Gulf region for long distances on both sides of the present Mississippi 
River presented an aspect very different from that existing today. A broad arm 
of the Gulf extended up into the continent as far as the Ohio River and so broad 
that were it existent today to cross it in the latitude of Shreveport, Vicksburg, 
Meridian and Mongomery, a fast ship would have a voyage of twenty-four hours. 

In geological literature this is called the Mississippi Embayment, and it has 
had an interesting developmental history from late Cretaceous time until the 
present. 

Extent. — The Gulf border of the continent in late Cretaceous time was 
200 miles north of its present position. The embayment began on the east side a 
few miles north of Montgomery, Alabama ; its eastern shore was an elevated 
region of hard Paleozoic rocks extending northwestward to Tuscaloosa, thence 
almost due north to the present Tennessee River a little west of Tuscumbia, 
thence through Tennessee and Kentucky paralleling within a few miles the west 
bank of the Tennessee. The head of the embayment crossed the Ohio River 
into the southernmost tier of counties of Illinois, crossed the Mississippi into 
southeastern Missouri, and extended in a straight line southwest to Pocahontas, 
Arkansas ; thence the old shore line took a general southwesterly direction to 
Little Rock, presenting, however, in Independence County a broadly wedge- 
shaped reintrant into the bordering Ozark Upland. From Little Rock the 
western border of the embayment extended southwestward to Arkadelphia, 
thence almost due west into southeastern Oklahoma, and southward into eastern 
Texas. 

The whole area included within the above boundaries in late Cretaceous time 
was covered by a great expanse of salt water, broadly wedge- or V shaped with 
the apex pointing north, the axis of the embayment having a trend a little east 
of north and west of south. All of the present states of Mississippi and Louis- 
iana north of latitude 32° 30', northwestern Alabama, western Tennessee and 
Kentucky, a small area in southern Illinois, southeastern Missouri, eastern Arkan- 

23 



sas, southeastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas were embraced within this 
inland sea, the borders of which were constantly changing, expanding on the 
one hand or contracting on the other as affected by submergence of contiguous 
lands or emergence of marginal sea bottom. 

This great bay came into existence as a result of a down-warping of the 
southern half of the continental axis now constituting the Mississippi Valley with 
the consequent advance of the Gulf waters over the depressed area. Since the 
initial period of maximum depression, the embayment area has been gradually 
emerging partly by filling, partly by crustal movement, until after a long time, 
even geologically considered, the whole area has again become a land surface, 
with the addition of broad areas to the south, east and west by the rising above 
sea level of broad margins of the continent along the whole Gulf and southern 
Atlantic coasts. It is the interesting history of these changes that is now 
attempted. 

Formation of the Embayment. — At the close of Palezoic time and prior 
to the down-warping mentioned above, the whole embayment area was a land 
surface composed of the old hard rock formations that make up the continent 
to the north of us, and that border the embayment area on the north, east and 
west. It is probable that these rocks constituted high lands of more or less rough 
topography, possibly mountainous in some parts. That they extended far south, 
and that the continent then was perhaps more extensive in that direction than 
today is more than probable, although borings in the embayment area, except 
near the margins, have failed to reach this old rock floor so deeply buried is it 
beneath later deposits. 

The old rock surface consisting of limestones, sandstones and shales, became 
land at the end of Palezoic time when the Appalachian revolution pushed and 
folded up the Appalachian chain of mountains and lifted the whole interior of 
the continent above the sea. During nearly the whole of Mesozoic time this old 
land remained above the sea and was subjected to the waste and wear of the 
elements. After millions of years of erosion it was worn down approximately 
to a level plain but little above sea level. Bordering its southern shores and 
along its drainage valleys, all now hidden from sight, forests of giant cycads 
grew, and the great reptilian monsters of Jurassic times lived and flourished in 
its bays and along the banks of its sluggish streams. 

In Cretaceous time the southern or Gulf coasts of this old land began to 
sink beneath the sea, and toward the close of that period the sinking had pro- 
gressed until a moderately deep bay teeming with marine life occupied the whole 
embayment area substantially as already outlined. 

Emergence at End of Cretaceous. — As would be expected in a gradually 
progressive submergence, the first deposits laid down on this old sea floor of the 
embayment were overlapped toward the head of the embayment, so that today 
none of these beds is to be seen in that region, nor are they encountered in 
deep borings, although in Georgia and eastern Alabama they form a narrow 
zone outcropping between the later Cretaceous beds and the old rocks of the 
Piedmont plateau. On the western side the earlier Cretaceous (Trinity) beds 

24 



again appear in western Arkansas and extend southwestward through Oklahoma 
into eastern Texas where it occupies large areas. 

This disturbance means that while in late Cretaceous time the head of the 
embayment was slowly extending northward, toward the mouth of the embay- 
ment the lands on the east and west were gradually rising and lifting into a 
fringe of lowland the marginal sea bottom. Undoubtedly the two areas of 
Lower Cretaceous are continuous beneath the embayment, but its northern 
border has not yet been discovered. 

At the end of the Cretaceous Period extensive uplift of the embayment sea 
bottom occurred. It is not to be supposed that this uplift was sudden or accom- 
panied with cataclysmic force, but was a slow oscillation of the earth's surface 
whose effects would scarcely have been noted in a long life time had men been 
present to observe the change. It is probable that this uplift converted the 
whole embayment into land, and possibly a larger area which now lies beneath 
the Gulf. 

The oscillation was not limited to the embayment, but affected the whole 
Gulf and southern Atlantic border, and brought up out of the sea extensive areas 
in the western part of the country. It constituted one of the important revolu- 
tions of geologic time — the transition from the Middle Age (Mesozoic) of the 
world to the Modern (Cenozoic) Age. The period of uplift and land erosion 
lasted so long that the continent was worn down to gently sloping plains, as 
shown by the uniformly even line of contact between the Cretaceous and Ter- 
tiary formations. 

Coincident with this geographic revolution the life of the world underwent 
marked changes. Old groups very abundant during Cretaceous times disappeared 
entirely or became unimportant; the cycads and giant ferns were replaced by 
broad-leaved trees of modern types ; the dominant reptiles that ruled the water, 
the land and the air during Mesozoic time dwindled to insignificant proportions 
and numbers, to be succeeded by gigantic and bizarre mammalian forms, most 
of which in turn have become extinct since the beginning of Cenozoic time, to 
be followed by more modern forms of the mammalian groups. 

Cretaceous Deposits. — The embayment has been progressively filled in, 
which, with successive uplifts of marginal bottom, has gradually reclaimed the 
whole area into land surface. Streams flowing into the head and sides of the 
embayment have furnished materials which have been worked by the waves 
into sea bottom deposits. Shell-bearing animals, corals and other lime-secreting 
forms of life have contributed largely to the deposits built into the lands of the 
Mississippi Embayment. 

At the beginning of this period of filling the lands bordering the embayment 
were high and the eroding streams rapid and tumultous. These inferences are 
justified by the character and mode of deposition of the materials brought into 
the embayment sea. These consist largely of immense gravel deposits which 
could have been transported only by swift streams. This gravel is composed of 
subangular partially water worn fragments of chert cemented together by cal- 
careous clay. Interstratified irregularly with these gravel beds are extensive 

25 



deposits of sand and clay, with occasional beds of lignitic or highly lignitic clay 
or sand. 

This lignitic material indicated swamp conditions at the time of its deposition, 
and it is probable that shoaling of the water by filling over limited areas along 
the coasts brought about temporary swamps and marshes with extensive growth 
of vegetation. 

This division of the Cretaceous is known as the Tuscaloosa formation, the 
deposits of this age being from 200 to 1,000 feet in thickness. Their distribu- 
tion is chiefly on the eastern side of the embayment, their outcrop on the west 
side being generally covered under later deposits. It is probable that toward the 
center of the embayment the materials of this formation thin out and become 
finer, possibly passing into clays or limestones. 

This period passes by easy gradations into the next younger one, the Eutaw, 
which forms a rather narrow fringe bordering the Tuscaloosa on the embayment 
side. The materials of this formation consist chiefly of thick sand deposits, 
becoming toward the end of the period somewhat finer and distinctly calcareous. 
The deposits still indicate more or less the action of rapidly eroding streams, but 
the lands were probably lower and the streams less swift than in the last period. 
Great loads of sand were delivered by these streams to the waves and currents 
of the sea which reworked them into off-shore deposits. These accumulated to 
a thickness of several hundred feet, thickening toward the south, as in the case 
of the east. 

The next period, the Selma, succeeded without interruption the Eutaw. The 
material deposited during this division of Cretaceous time consists of a soft 
bluish gray limestone containing a considerable proportion of clay. This lime- 
stone is rich in large marine shells of different types and shows abundant evidence 
of the presence of marine sauriaus, bones and teeth of which have been found 
in many places. 

The Selma or Anona Chalk, a limestone of the southern part of the embay- 
ment, is chiefly lime with eight or ten per cent of clay, which shows a deposit 
almost entirely free from terrigenous deposits. This can be explained only on 
the theory that the streams flowing into the embayment sea had worn the sur- 
rounding lands so low that their waters brought little sediment into the sea, and 
what was brought in was the finest clay, indicating sluggish drainage. 

However, the chief drainage into the embayment was at the north end, and 
here we find the Selma to consist of a calcareous clay, indicating that deposits 
from the land, though the finest clay, was still in excess of that of marine origin. 
Since the materials of this period are mostly of marine origin, and since marine 
deposition is very slow, we are safe in concluding that the period of Selma 
deposition was much longer than either of the two preceding. The Selma in the 
southern part of the embayment reached a thickness of 800 or 900 feet. Its 
chief distribution is in Alabama and Mississippi, though a zone ten to twelve 
miles wide extends as far north as southeastern Carroll County, Tennessee. 
Around the head of the embayment and along the western border, the Cretaceous, 
if present, is covered by later deposits. It reappears in southern Oklahoma and 

26 



eastern Texas. Deep wells in many places in Tennessee and Arkansas reach 
Cretaceous beds, but our information about them is meagre. 

The latest division of the Cretaceous, the Ripley, consists of impure lime- 
stones and sandy marls and sands, having a maximum thickness of about 500 
feet. During this time the streams had perhaps cut back into new regions fur- 
nishing new sources of sand, for much of the Ripley material is sand of medium 
coarseness. The limestones formed the basal part, showing a transition from 
the deeper and clearer seas of the Selma to the shallow water conditions of late 
Ripley. The Ripley marls contain abundance of marine molluscous shells, mostly 
fragmentary, but showing beautiful metallic and iridescent colors. 

The Ripley outcrop constitutes the series of high sand ridges in northeast 
Mississippi called Pontotoc Ridge. This high, sandy ridge passes into Tennes- 
see in McNairy County, being exposed in a notable cut near Cypress, on the 
Southern Railway, and thence runs north ten to fifteen miles wide, but grad- 
ually narrowing as it passes through western Kentucky a few miles west of Ten- 
nessee River. A narrow zone of the Ripley outcrops in Lawrence and Inde- 
pendence counties of Arkansas, but it is encountered in well drillings over most 
of eastern Arkansas. From Arkadelphia to Texarkana occur other narrow 
outcrops, but on the whole, in southwestern Arkansas the Ripley barely peeps 
out from under later formations of the embayment regions. 

During the whole Cretaceous the sides of the embayment were gradually 
being elevated above the sea, with resulting narrowing of the bay. As before 
stated, the whole embayment area was probably uplifted and became dry land 
at the end of Cretaceous time. 

Tertiary History. — After a long interval of erosion of the uplifted Creta- 
ceous deposits and older Paleozoic lands, the embayment area was again sub- 
merged and an inland bay established. This bay was narrower than during 
Cretaceous time, but longer, the embayment head reaching in the early Tertiary 
its maximum northern extension. 

The deposits of the Midway stage, the earliest division of the Tertiary, con- 
sist in the southern part of the embayment of fossiliferous green sand marls and 
clays, but in the northern parts in Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Arkansas, 
only the clay is present, forming the so-called "flatwoods." It is a tough, gray, 
joint clay, and in the lower parts where it rests upon the marine marls is more 
or less calcareous and fossiliferous. These clays and marls are encountered in 
drilling at numerous places in the interior of the embayment, where they show 
a thickness of about 200 feet. The outcropping portions, however, show only in 
a narrow zone bordering the bayward side of the Cretaceous. This "flatwoods" 
is evident in Alabama and Mississippi, and extends through Tennessee and 
Kentucky into southern Illinois, thence southwest through southeastern Missouri 
into eastern Arkansas, by Little Rock to Arkadelphia and Texarkana then west 
into eastern Texas. 

The next younger division of the Tertiary, the Wilcox (also called Sabine 
and Lagrange), lies upon the Midway, completely covering it except for the 
narrow penumbra mentioned above. This is a very important period in the 

27 



history of the embayment, since at the end of this time the greater part of the 
embayment was uplifted into land, and has not since been submerged. 

The Wilcox consists of a maximum of from 900 to 1,000 feet of deposits, 
which are chiefly sands and clays, the sands often showing great irregularities 
of bedding. The deposits and fossils of the Wilcox show very little evidence of 
marine conditions, and it is probable that these beds were deposited in shallow 
water, perhaps at times in brackish or fresh water swamps. Extensive lignite 
deposits, which are derived from peat swamps, occur interstratified with the 
clays and sands, and most of the fossils of the Wilcox are impressions of land 
plants, although a few marine fossils occur, especially in the southeastern part 
of the embayment. It seems probable that in the southern part of the embay- 
ment marine conditions prevailed, while toward the head of the bay swamps and 
brackish marshes persisted. 

At the end of Wilcox time most of the embayment became land by uplift 
and by long-continued filling, which probably was somewhat of the nature of 
delta-building. Certain it is, the cross-bedded sands very frequently impress 
one as having been deposited under delta conditions. 

The succeeding epoch, known as the Claiborne, is much more restricted in 
its distribution than the Wilcox. Its outcrop strikes across Alabama and Mis- 
sissippi in a northwest direction to Grenada. From Grenada a very much nar- 
rowed zone reached northward to Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, approached 
the Mississippi River beneath the delta formations, and reappeared in Crowley's 
Ridge, Arkansas, as far north as Harrisburg, and thence southwestward. This 
distribution indicates a very much narrowed, as well as a considerably shortened 
bay, and this was practically obliterated before the end of the Claiborne. 

The Claiborne deposits are mainly marine marls, clays, and sandstones, highly 
fossiliferous in places toward the mouth of the embayment, but much more like 
the sandy, clayey and lignitic character of the Wilcox in the regions toward the 
head of the embayment. The closing stage of the Claiborne was marked by 
deposition of clays and sands with much interstratified lignite, indicating swamp 
conditions. 

The Jackson epoch followed the Claiborne, with probably a short erosion 
interval between the two. Marine conditions prevailed during Jackson time, 
and highly calcareous sandy marls and clays were doposited about the open mouth 
of the embayment, which by this time was almost filled, so that the Jackson out- 
crop runs nearly east and west across central Alabama, Mississippi and Louis- 
iana. Beds of Jackson age are reported to occur in Crowley's Ridge, Arkansas, 
as far north as Wynne, and in southeastern Arkansas south of the Arkansas 
River. If this correlation be correct, a narrow bay, the limits of which are 
mostly hidden beneath the Mississippi Delta deposits, extended as far north as 
Wynne. 

The seas of this time were abundantly inhabited by all kinds of shell fish, 
whose shells are beautifully preserved in great variety in the marls of that 
period. Shark teeth and vertebrae indicated abundance of these predacious 
fish. In Alabama and Mississippi occur in the marine clays of this period 
vertebrae and teeth of the Zeuglodon, a gigantic species of whale that lived in the 

28 



Jackson seas. Bones and teeth of this animal have been dug up in the city limits 
of Jackson, Mississippi, for which place the formation was named. 

This epoch was closed by depositing sixty to eighty feet of sands and clays, 
often lignitic, which probably indicated a local change of offshore currents, with 
shoaling of the water. This was only for a short time and was followed by the 
inauguration of the Vicksburg epoch, which was characterized by strict marine 
conditions. These beds are alternating hard limestones and limey marls. The 
limestones are massive in places, and occur in high ledges along the streams. 
Some of this limestone is very pure. Certain phases of it consist of a creamy 
white or yellowish uniformly soft limestone which can be sawed in blocks of 
convenient size and shape, and placed in chimneys or foundations of buildings, 
when it hardens to a firm rock. It is hence locally called "chimney rock." 

The outcrop of the Vicksburg extends from Vicksburg, the type locality, a 
little south of east across Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia; and extends west- 
ward into northern Louisiana. The only vestige of the great embayment remain- 
ing was a slight indentation in the shore line about the positions of the Missis- 
sippi River. 

The relatively deep clear water conditions of Vicksburg time, with marine 
life, gave way at the beginning of the next stage to turbid, shallow waters, either 
fresh or brackish. This, the Catahoula (formerly called Grand Gulf, from a 
lnading on the Mississippi River), presents a marked and rather abrupt change 
from limestones and marls to sandstones, greenish clays, gray clays and lignite, 
containing remains of fossil land plants but no marine fossils such as were so 
abundant in the Vicksburg. The outcrop of these beds extends across Alabama, 
Mississippi, and Louisiana in a direction slightly convex toward the continental 
mass, showing still an indentation of the shore line. 

The great quantities of clay and sand could not have been spread along the 
shores of that time except from deposits by turbid streams. Abundant plant 
remains have been found in the Catahoula, both in the clays and in the sand- 
stones, but all are species that fringe the coasts of tropic or subtropic seas. 
Hence the climate of this time was considerably warmer than in the same 
regions now. The flora was very largely palms, some of them large-sized trees. 
Impressions of large palm leaves are sometimes found preserved perfectly in 
the sandstone of this period. 

Thick deposits of gray and mottled clay, in places containing lime concre- 
tions, marked the final stage of deposition extending across Louisiana and Mis- 
sissippi into southern Alabama. These, also, were either fresh or brackish water 
deposits, and were laid down in marginal lagoons or shallow offshore shelves 
undergoing gradual depression. Where shallow water deposits occur in great 
thickness there must necessarily have been continued and prolonged sinking 
of the area at about the same rate as the upbuilding, else the shallow waters 
would have soon shoaled and become converted by filling into dry land. 

Present Condition of the Embayment Deposits. — The older rocks of the 
earth are for the most part firmly indurated, so that clays have become shales or 
slates, sands have become sandstone or quartzite, sea-bottom oozes have become 
limestones or marbles. These changes come about as the result of the operation 

29 



of several factors, vertical pressure, lateral compression, cementation and heat, 
through long periods of time. All the materials brought into the embayment 
were deposited as unconsolidated sediments. After long ages the action of the 
above factors, or of some of them, has resulted in a complete consolidation of 
some of these formations, and the partial consolidation of others, while some 
remain but little changed from the original condition of sediment. 

The Tuscaloosa and Eutaw sands and gravels are still unconsolidated; the 
Selma limestone is semi-indurated into a soft limestone ; the Ripley consists of 
unconsolidated sands, partly indurated marls, and hard crystalline limestones. 
The Midway presents firm crystalline limestones, unconsolidated marls, and 
firmly compacted and finely jointed clay; the Wilcox is mostly unchanged sands, 
but has beds of firm clays and shales, and occasional hard sandstones; the Clai- 
borne is in part firmly indurated rock, often quartzitic, and partly semi-com- 
pacted clays and marls ; the Jackson consists of firmly compacted clays and 
marls ; the Vicksburg is prevailingly in hard limestone layers, with intercalated 
soft marls; the Grand Gulf exhibits hard sandstone and quartzitic beds, but 
more abundantly firm clay beds. 

Development of Present Topography. — As we have seen, in the course 
of emergence of the embayment area, the oldest formations next to the old 
lands became uplifted into land, first as a penumbral border to the enclosing 
lands; then each successively younger formation came up adding another fringe 
to the border; and so on down to the youngest, which completed the filling of 
the old embayment. 

Erosion began at once on the first land to appear above the sea, and waste 
and wearing down has continued on the whole embayment lands from the time 
of the emergence until now, so that now the surface as a whole is one of mature 
erosion. Valleys have been cut out, dividing ridges have been lowered, and 
over large areas the general surface has been lowered and reduced to gently 
undulating plains. The rate of waste and the stage of erosion reached vary in 
different parts, dependent upon the character of the materials of the different for- 
mations ; thus the region presents several very well-marked topographic divisions. 
As is well known, the erosion of sandy formations tends to the development 
of deep valleys separated by high steep divides, producing rough topography. 
This is due to the rapid down-cutting of stream channels in unconsolidated 
sands, while the fall of rain upon the divides sinks in instead of running off 
with erosive effects. In regions of clays, on the contrary, as the valleys deepen 
the divides are lowered by rain erosion, because the clay being impervious, rain 
flows off the surface with resultant erosion. Regions of clays tend to develop 
low, level, or gently rolling plains. In a region of hard rocks another factor 
operates to develop the topography. Cracks or joints in the rocks often deter- 
mine the position and direction of streams, and as valleys develop these joints 
often permit the rocks to cool off in blocks, leaving rugged, vertical, often steep 
walls, so that a region of hard rocks is apt to present a rugged topography. 

Remembering these facts, and coupling them with what has been already 
said about the nature of the materials entering into formations of the embay- 
ment, it is not difficult to understand the distribution of the topographic regions. 

30 



The earliest and the latest Cretaceous divisions constitute prominent and rugged 
uplands and ridges, which would be expected, since they are prevailingly of 
sand. These ridges form some of the highest and most picturesque regions of 
northeast Mississippi and western Tennessee. This outcrop in northeast Arkansas 
is less wide, but present the same rugged uplands. 

Between these two uplands lies the outcrop of the Selma, a region of clay and 
soft clayey limestone which weathers like clay. This, in contrast to the rough 
sand regions lying east and west of it, presents a broad zone of gently rolling 
prairies in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. The prairies of Arkansas were 
not of the same origin, but were developed from a later clay formation. The 
Selma does not outcrop in Arkansas. 

The early Midway limestones lie in immediate contact with the sands of the 
latest Cretaceous, and combine with them to form the rugged uplands just 
described. The later Midway, however, is a clay formation and its outcrop, 
called "The Flatwoods," is so low and level as to suggest a broad river valley. 
This varies from three to ten or fifteen miles wide, and in its natural condition 
is forested with hardwoods chiefly, whereas the sandy uplands are mainly 
regions of pines. 

The Wilcox and early Claiborne stages, characterized by extensive sand for- 
mations, outcrop in most of the interior of the embayment in rolling and hilly 
uplands, except where the surface has been planed away by the Mississippi 
River into low flood plains. 

The upper Claiborne and Jackson stages, being prevailingly marls and calca- 
reous clays, outcrop in level or gently rolling uplands, often open prairies that 
form a rather narrow east and west belt across western Alabama, Mississippi 
and into Louisiana and southern Arkansas. However, most of the area west of 
the Mississippi is covered by flood plain deposits. 

The Vicksburg and lower Catahoula, which lies next to it on the south, 
present a high, broken east-west zone in the latitude of Vicksburg, the rough 
topography being developed because of the hard limestone and sandstone 
outcrops. 

The later extensive clay formations occupying the regions of southern 
Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have developed broad gently rolling surfaces 
that slope gradually toward the Gulf. Where decided irregularity of surface in 
tihs region occurs it is produced by deposits of superimposed sand and gravel 
of later age, which will be explained in the next paragraph. 

Development of the Mississippi Flood Plain. — Undoubtedly, from the 
beginning of the embayment depression drainage of the upland to the north 
flowed into the head of the bay, the axis of drainage, most probably, following 
the general direction of the present Mississippi River. When the whole embay- 
metrt had been filled in and raised above sea level, with a gentle seaward-sloping 
surface, the drainage from the north began to trench upon the newly made land. 
Since the materials were soft and the surface had but slight elevation, this great 
river, the present Mississippi, soon cut its channel in the embayment axis down 
to base level, or practically to sea level. The final upheaval which obliterated the 
embayment, as mentioned above, extended to the old lands around the head of 

31 



the embayment area, rejuvenating the streams, so that they began to bring down 
into the Mississippi great quantities of chert, gravel and coarse materials derived 
from the chert beds and cherty limestones of the Appalachian and Ozark uplands. 
This material was deposited along the courses of the Mississippi, Tennessee, 
White, and Red rivers, where they flowed through the embayment. On reaching 
the Gulf great quantities of this material were delivered by the river to the 
Gulf waves and currents, which reworked them and spread them along the 
coasts, chiefly toward the east, just as present day deposits of sand and mud 
are distributed toward the east rather than toward the west. 

It is probable that during this gravel depositing epoch there were two or 
three successive periods of uplift, for the present position of the gravel deposits 
is on river-made terraces separated by vertical intervals of about 100 feet. 
However, it is possible that some of the lower terrace gravels may be reworked 
from the higher terrace deposits, just as the present river gravels of the Mis- 
sissippi are reworked terrace gravels. 

The depth of alluvial deposits of the Mississippi indicate strongly that there 
has been some subsidence in the embayment region since the earlier Pliocene 
elevations. Also that there must have been some submergence in the lowest 
parts of the embayment during the deposition of the great thickness of gravel, for 
these gravels now cover in southern Mississippi and Alabama much of the clay 
regions of the later embayment deposits. 

After the great gravel epoch the embayment area became stable, and the 
Mississippi having cut its channel down to base level, began to under-cut and 
widen its channel. The process of widening continued until a floodplain was 
developed. This was narrow at first, and the stream meandered from side to 
side, cutting it wider and wider. The river now occupies a great trough cut 
out of the enclosing lands, 100 to 250 feet below the top of the coastal plain 
upland, and 75 to 80 miles wide. This has all been cut out of the uplands by the 
wandering of the Mississippi and its tributaries over its floodplain, swinging 
first to one side and then to the other. 

Early in this period of floodplain building the Mississippi and the Ohio pursued 
separate courses through the northern embayment as far south as Helena, 
Arkansas, at which point they united. During this time the Mississippi, at 
Cape Girardeau, Missouri, turned toward the southwest and flowed through 
the gap between Benton Ridge and the Ozark uplands, thence through the low- 
lands west of Crowley's Ridge, meeting at its southern point the Ohio which 
flowed on the east side of those ridges in the present course of the Mississippi. 
Both Benton and Crowley's Ridges are remnants of the old embayment uplands 
which escaped the lateral cutting of the two streams. 

After these streams had cut out broad floodplains the melting of the great 
continental glaciers of the Ice Age deluged southward flowing streams with 
waste from the north. Covering the floodplains the streams deposited fine silt, 
which after the water receded into its channels, was whipped up by the winds 
and redeposited as loess on the lowlands and uplands alike. This loess is a 
tawny, calcareous, unstratified silt which covers the bluffs of Crowley's Ridge 
and the fringe of bluffs east of the Mississippi floodplain, and overlying the 

32 



terrace gravels to a thickness of 25 to 100 feet. Whatever loess was deposited 
on the Advance and Mississippi lowlands of Missouri and Arkansas was removed 
by subsequent transgression of the streams over those areas with deposition of 
recent alluvium. 

After the period of loess deposition a small tributary of the Ohio which 
was flowing at a lower level than the Mississippi, cut across the divide connect- 
ing Benton and Crowley's Ridges and captured the waters of the Mississippi, 
which then abandoned its course west of Crowley's Ridge and took the course 
of the Ohio. Soon another tributary of the Ohio cut back by head erosion into 
the Mississippi on the east side of Benton Ridge, thus diverting the stream into 
its present course at that point. Since these changes the Mississippi has occupied 
the former channel of the Ohio River, which now enters it at Cairo, instead of in 
the vicinity of Helena, as originally. Recent alluvial deposits of the Delta, as 
indicated by drillings, are from 50 to 100 feet in depth. In the lowlands of 
Arkansas, Pleistocene sands and gravels underlie the alluvium to a depth of 
200 feet. 

Underground Waters of the Embayment. — At almost any part of the 
embayment area good potable water can be had in abundance at some depth. 

Lowland Supplies. — In the lowlands of the Mississippi floodplain, which 
includes the St. Francis Basin of Missouri and Arkansas and the alluvial plains 
of the L'Anguille, the White, the Arkansas, and the Ouachita, shallow driven 
wells have been in use for many years. These obtain water from the sands of 
the recent alluvium at depths ranging from 25 to 100 feet. The yield is not 
usually abundant, but is sufficient; the water is not particularly good, the water 
from most of the wells having a disagreeable taste and odor. These wells are not 
safe against surface contamination. With rare exceptions they are pumped 
by cheap hand pumps, though occasionally one is found that will flow. 

In that part of Arkansas included in the embayment lowlands sands and 
gravels below the recent alluvium extend to a depth of 200 feet, and these fur- 
nish abundance of water of good quality. The greater part of the wells of that 
region get water from this source. In all the counties where wells furnish 
water for irrigating the rice fields, this source of water is used. Many wells are 
pumped at rates of from 1,000 to 4,000 gallons per minute. 

Conditions in the southeastern lowlands of Missouri are similar to those in 
the adjacent parts of Arkansas. Here shallow wells 100 to 200 feet deep reach 
good wholesome water in pleistocene sands ; wells 300 to 500 feet deep reach 
the water horizons of the Wilcox; at 1,400 to 1,500 feet good water that will 
rise nearly to the surface can be had from the Cretaceous. 

In the lowlands of Tennessee wells easily reach the water-bearing sands of 
the Lagrange formation, which yield a good soft water. Often wells can be 
driven into these sands at a depth of 150 to 200 feet; hence the less desirable 
water of the river alluvium is seldom used, although it can be reached at thirty 
to fifty feet. The chief water supply of Memphis and smaller places along the 
river is derived from the Lagrange at 300 to 450 feet depth. Deeper water 
supplies could doubtless be obtained from the Ripley (late Cretaceous) at a 
depth of 1,200 to 1,400 feet. 

33 



On the Delta lowlands of Mississippi driven wells from 30 to 75 feet deep 
derive water from the alluvium. These are rapidly being replaced by deep 
wells that furnish abundance of excellent water. In the eastern Delta artesian 
water is obtained at depths of from 450 to 650 feet, in the western Delta at 
depths from 850 to 1,000 feet. From the northern Delta toward the south the 
depth of artesian wells gradually increases. Nearly all the Delta wells in Missis- 
sippi are flowing wells. The water becomes more mineralized with increasing 
depth but is wholesome throughout the region. 

Upland Water Supplies — On Crowley's Ridge, Benton Ridge, and uplands 
lying near the Mississippi River, shallow wells and springs get water in the 
gravel at the bottom of the loess. This water is liable to be hard, but is otherwise 
wholesome, though deeper supplies are better. In the area of Wilcox outcrop 
wells 100 to 300 feet deep find supplies of excellent water, but the wells do not 
flow. Numerous excellent springs occur in the Wilcox area. In the northern 
embayment deeper wells will reach the Cretaceous at 1,000 to 1,200 feet. In the 
area of the "Flatwoods" good flowing wells can be had at a depth of 100 to 250 
feet. In the prairies of the Selma outcrop of west Tennessee and northeast 
Mississippi water must be obtained by sinking wells to the sands below the 
Selma, a depth of 300 feet in Tennessee to 900 feet in central Mississippi. 

The Claiborne furnishes abundance of flowing wells at 150 to 300 feet depth. 
The Jackson prairies have no shallow wells ; at 600 to 800 feet good soft water 
is reached, and on the stream terraces at 1,300 to 1,400 feet flowing wells are the 
rule. In the Vicksburg and the Catahoula outcrops deep water is somewhat 
uncertain, but shallow wells at the base of overlying sands and gravels furnish 
excellent water. Good springs also occur. 

Mineral Products. — The embayment is not considered a highly mineralized 
region, yet it is lately coming prominently to the front with minerals of recog- 
nized value. 

In the Wilcox formation of Mississippi and Tennessee high grade clays in 
great quantity are commanding attention, and will undoubtedly be developed 
at no distant day. Lignite of good quality and in great abundance occurs in the 
Wilcox and Claiborne formations. These lignites have not yet been developed, 
but if the high price of coal continues may be put upon the market. Tests have 
proved the high fuel value of the Coastal Plain lignites. Building stone, excel- 
lent road-making gravels, and other structural materials are found in abundance, 
and are being put upon the market. The greatest sulphur mines in the world 
are located in Louisiana. Northern Louisiana, southern Louisiana and south- 
eastern Texas have developed some of the most phenomenal oil and gas fields 
known, and very recently southern Arkansas has stepped to the front with a new 
oil and gas field. 

Soils of the Embayment. — Two pronounced classes of soils occur in this 
region, upland soils and lowland soils. They will be considered separately. 

Upland Soils. — The most widely distributed upland soil is the Memphis 
Silt Loam, more commonly called Brown Loam. This is a brownish-gray silty 
soil, resting upon a reddish-brown or tawny, clayey subsoil. When rich in 
humus it is a very dark brown mellow soil that is easily cultivated and holds 

34 



moisture well. Much of it in this area is badly exhausted, but much, also, 
after many years of tillage is still abundantly productive. This soil is derived 
from the loess, and was probably deposited by wind. It covers Crowley's and 
Benton Ridges and the adjacent uplands in Missouri and Arkansas, extends over 
western Kentucky and Tennessee, all of the west third of Mississippi, and over 
large areas in southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana. 

This soil is usually well drained owing to its upland position and its uneven 
surface. Over large areas it is gently rolling, but along the bluffs bordering the 
Mississippi lowlands its surface becomes rough. It was originally all forested 
with hardwood trees. Within fifteen or twenty miles of the bluffs this soil 
overlies the typical calcareous loess which imparts its lime to the soil. Within 
these limits this soil is deeper and more productive than further back from the 
river, and is very largely cultivated in cotton, corn, hay and potatoes, and in 
many places in vegetable crops and fruit. Apples, pears, peaches and small fruits 
do well on this soil. 

Orangeburg and Ruston Soils. — On the sandy uplands both east and west 
of the Mississippi River lowlands the prevailing soils are the Orangeburg and 
Ruston series. Usually the rich red uplands that lie nearly level are regarded 
as Orangeburg. This soil when rich in humus is a deep rich brown, friable, fine, 
sandy loam resting upon a deep red subsoil. This soil is always well drained; 
it holds moisture and fertilizer well, is an excellent and very productive upland 
soil, producing corn abundantly, potatoes, vegetables and fruits. It is especially 
adapted to sugar cane growing, the syrup from cane grown on this soil being of 
the finest flavor. The Elberta peach finds this soil especially congenial. 

The Ruston soils are a dark gray fine sandy loam, resting upon a yellowish- 
brown subsoil. It is usually associated with the Orangeburg, but is more widely 
distributed. The soil is well drained, usually has a native growth of pines, but 
is a less dependable soil than the Orangeburg. It is less rich in plant food, is 
less retentive of moisture, and makes smaller yields. It also is adapted to such 
crops as sugar cane, potatoes, corn, cotton and peas. Peanuts and legumes, 
especially velvet beans (in the southern part of the area), and cowpeas do well. 
Strawberries produce well, have excellent flavor, and ripen early. 

Clay Soils. — In the embayment of Arkansas large areas of clayey soils 
occur in Prairie, Lonoke, and adjacent counties. The surface is poorly drained 
and nearly flat, much of it being in open prairies. The poorly drained prairie 
type is called Crowley Silt Loam, and occupies all of Grand Prairie. The some- 
what better drained type which shades into the other and is usually clothed with 
hardwood forests, is Arcadia Silt Loam. These are highly fertile soils, but 
owing to bad drainage were long avoided by settlers. The better drained Arcadia 
Silt Loam was in part cultivated. But within recent years these wet lands have 
been found well adapted to rice growing, and are very valuable. 

These soil types do not appear on the east side of the Mississippi River. In 
the clayey "Flatwoods" of the Midway which forms a zone three or four to fifteen 
miles wide in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, the chief soil is the Lufkin 
Clay, a heavy, dark, brownish to gray soil resting upon a tenaceous gray clay 
subsoil. This soil usually lies nearly flat, so that surface drainage is not good, 

35 



and its texture is so close that water is held tenaciously. Both surface and under 
drainage is needed. Tiling would greatly benefit this soil. The Lufkin soil is 
generally wooded in post oak, black jack, and pine, the forests being open. 

This area has been settled slowly, but with the cutting away of the timber 
farms are springing up. Tillage of these soils is difficult, they are wet and cold, 
and crops are late starting and late maturing. Very good crops of corn, peas, 
hay and legumes, especially lespedeza, are grown, and the soil is improving 
under cultivation. 

Broad prairies in Mississippi and Alabama with rich limey clay soils charac- 
terize the outcrop of the Selma soft limestone. The soils are heavy, limey, dark 
gray clay soils, technically called Houston Clay. This is a very productive soil. 
All common crops do well, but it is especially well adapted to growing alfalfa. 

This is a region of large and prosperous farms, and the country is very 
attractive ; cattle raising and dairying are developing, and good surfaced roads 
are being built throughout the section. 

The Jackson Clay is another zone of limey prairies that have the Houston 
Clay soil, but it is less extensive than the northeast prairies. The character of 
soil and topography is very similar and the land is productive of the staple crops. 

Lowland Soils. — These include the soils of the whole floodplain region, 
remarkable as being one of the richest and largest alluvial regions on the globe. 
Several classes of soils with numerous types have been distinguished in this 
division, but these need not be taken up here; it will be sufficient to distinguish 
the prevailing types. 

From the nature of their origin the soils of the lowlands are mixed. Mate- 
rials from the whole interior drainage basin of the continent have been brought 
together by tributaries of the Mississippi, mingled in transportation, and finally 
spread out in thin sheets over the whole overflowed area. Through countless 
seasons these annual overflows spread out their tribute from the surrounding 
lands upon this rich plain, building it up until a great thickness — 100 feet, or 
more — of fine alluvium has been laid down. But the coarsest and heaviest 
deposits were made by the overflowing waters along the borders of the streams, 
while the finer materials were carried out and deposited further away from the 
water courses. As a result the land built up more rapidly near the streams, and 
more slowly in the interstream areas. The soils, therefore, which are formed of 
materials first deposited near the stream are of coarser texture, consisting of 
sands, sandy loams, and loams, then those made of clays that are deposited 
in the low interstream areas. 

The broad low back lands are often swampy, occupied by many sloughs and 
shallow lakes, the whole area being badly in need of drainage. The entire low- 
land surface is so near one level that the streams which flow through it and 
drain it are tortuous and sluggish, often clogged with drifts and debris left by 
high waters. These conditions are being gradually changed, but much yet remains 
to be done to reclaim these richest soils of the continent. So rich and so exten- 
sive is this floodplain, occupying large areas in five states, that were it brought 
to its highest productiveness it could wellnigh clothe and feed the world. 

36 



The highest and best drained soil of this area is what is called the Sharkey 
Fine Sandy Loam. This is the lightest type of delta soil, and consists of a light 
brown fine sandy and silty soil, which is easy of tillage and rests upon a grayish 
brown subsoil. This is usually not very extensive and lies near the streams. 
It is an excellent soil for cotton, corn, oats, cowpeas, and lespedeza, and being 
an early soil is suitable for trucking where convenient to markets. 

Sharkey Silt Loam is a somewhat heavier soil, dark brown, deep and under- 
lain with a clay subsoil. This soil lies a little lower than the Sharkey Fine 
Sandy Loam, and farther away from the streams. It is much more extensive 
in its distribution ; is a typical cotton and corn soil, and owing to its fertility and 
its comparatively well-drained condition it is one of the best and highest priced 
in the whole lowland region. It is more certain than any other soil in this area. 

The Sharkey Clay is a heavy clay soil, dark brown to dark drab color, wet 
and tenacious. It is the typical "buckshot" soil of the delta. It lies in the broad 
interstream depressions, and is the lowest type of soil in the area. Hence it is 
cold and badly in need of drainage. A small percentage of this soil area can be 
cultivated without drainage, but the greater part requires it before cultivation 
can be attempted. 

This soil is very rich in all the elements of plant-food — in fact, when properly 
drained it is not surpassed in fertility by any known soils. Owing to its reten- 
tiveness of moisture the Sharkey Clay is a late soil ; it can be put in condition of 
tilth only late in spring, and consequently crops get a late start, but so vigorous 
is the growth that by the end of the growing season phenomenal yields of cotton, 
corn, oats and numerous other crops are made. Two bales of cotton or fifty to 
seventy-five bushels of corn to the acre are common yields. Where rice has 
been attempted it has yielded enormously ; wheat and alfalfa are successfully 
grown. With proper drainage this soil is unsurpassed in alfalfa yield. 

The greatest problem of the whole lowland region is Drainage. All types 
of soils are bettered by having adequate drainage. Any reasonable investment of 
capital in constructing drainage systems in that vast basin, into which has flowed 
the cream of the fertility of all the interior of the continent from the Appalachians 
to the Rockies, from the highlands of Canada to the Gulf, would be like buying 
gold eagles with silver dimes. Wonderful as are the yields of these lands now, 
under thorough drainage systems the increase would be incalculable. Where 
now are villages, would spring up cities, and land values would rise to heights 
commensurate with those of the best lands of Illinois and Iowa, which these 
lands exceed in fertility. 



37 



Story of the Levees 



By E . M . Holmes 



,,J AN began to build levees for the protection of the lands which 
he desired to use or to occupy before he began to make any 

M/gn record which has survived until today whether it be on the 
y§») granite of Egypt or the bricks of Mesopotamia, but it has 
remained for these United States to erect the most gigantic 
system of protection from surplus water of any land in the 
world and the largest of these levees are in the Mid-South. 

Contemporary with the civilization along the Tigris and the Euphrates to 
which we trace most of our lines of learning, there was another along the Nile 
its equal and at times surpassing it. There possibly were conspicuous develop- 
ment in India and China at the same time, but during the time when both the 
people and the monarchs took themselves very seriously a Chinese emperor 
burned all the books written prior to his time in order that all learning for the 
future in the world should date from him. However, both sacred-and profane 
history and the recorded traditions antedating it refer to levees along the banks 
of overflowing streams just in the same matter of fact way that they refer to 
passes through the mountains or to the water courses themselves — to something 
that has existed always. 

The Bible contains a wonderfully written and thrilling story of Joseph's sale 
as a slave in Egypt, his romance with Mrs. Potiphar, his long reign as Pharaoh's 
premier, Jacob's migration to him and the multiplication of the Children of 
Israel in the land of Goshen, which was in the eastern portion of the lowest 
Nile delta, but the levee system of the Nile is known to have been three thou- 
sand and three hundred years old at that time and the Holy Writ makes no 
mention of it. Herodotus was there five hundred years before the birth of 
Christ and noted a mass of details in the land so strange to his mind, but levees 
were so old at that time that he barely refers to them. 

Cyrus and the dashing Queen Semiramis performed wonders in the Mesopo- 
tamian country by adding to the levee systems around Babylon, while Nicrotis 
not only leveed the river but changed its course for a time in order that he might 
build bridges across its channel in Babylon without being bothered by water. His 
barrow pits were so big that they were beautiful lakes. 

Pliny narrates that the levees along the River Po in Italy antedated the 
founding of Rome and he could not determine from traditions by whom they 
were built. 



38 



When Drusus invaded what now is Holland for the first Roman Emperor he 
found levees there and Tacitus tells of that general building the fossa Drusi 
which changed the course of a river. 

The Rhine, the Rhone, the Oder, the Vistula, the Loire, the Tisza, the 
Hoang-Ho, and the Meuse, or Maas as the Hollanders call it, have been leveed 
for untold years. 

The original settlement of New Orleans was delayed because the settlers 
found the site flooded. Man cannot conceive of the human labor expended to 
restrain the waters of these rivers, but, as in the case of the alluvial basin of the 
Mississippi River, the most fertile and productive land which each succeeding 
civilization could find could be made to feed and clothe the human race only 
if the water which had created that fertility could be brought under control. 
Levees properly constructed have never failed to do this and no other system, 
in the seven thousand years in which there is a record of levees has been devised 
to attain the same result. 

The oldest river gauge in existence today is that located opposite Cairo in 
the Nile. It was established nearly thirteen hundred years ago and there is a 
record of the high and low water readings since that time. Records on other 
streams run back for many years. The actions of the streams protected by levees 
have been closely watched by the best observers of their times and the data 
compiled have been studied by the best minds of the world. It has been estab- 
lished beyond the shadow of a doubt that the effect of levees is not to raise the 
level of the bed of the river appreciably if at all. The bed of neither the Po nor 
the Yellow River is as high as the country through which it runs. The savants 
whom Napoleon took to Egypt with him thought that possibly the bed of the 
Nile had risen some four feet in twelve hundred years, and the rise in the bed 
of the Po is only that natural to the elongation of the river into the Adriatic sea 
by the deposit of the silt at its mouth. 

We should not worry greatly in 1921 over the thought that by the good 
year 2221 the levees of the Mississippi River will have to be one foot higher than 
they are today. Major Dabney in one generation has made a line one hundred 
miles long with a maximum height of forty-two feet and an average of twenty- 
four feet starting from practically zero. The next ten generations ought to be 
able to add an average of one inch each to that. 

If there has been any change at all in the bed of the River Po, it has been 
only eight inches in two hundred and eight years. 

Probably the mental trait which causes us to think of those things which are 
far from us in time or miles is to magnify them, but the Nile Valley which 
supported twelve millions of people at the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 
700 had an area of about the same size as the St. Francis Basin of Arkansas 
and the Yazoo Delta of Mississippi, while the protected area of Holland is not 
nearly so large as the Yazoo Delta. 

Areas of other levee systems in the world are inconsiderable in comparison 
with those along the Mississippi River. Holland has some thirteen hundred 
miles of levees, but many miles of that system are for the purpose of affording 
means of transportation and having water at hand for irrigation. Innumerable 

39 



of its polders or basins entirely surrounded by levees are smaller than the aver- 
age plantations of the lowlands along the Mississippi River. In Egypt the ques- 
tion is more one of irrigation than mere protection from the water. The Egyp- 
tians with their systems of levees and cross levees benefit some six million acres, 
while the Dutch have about half as much. The River Po is restrained by three 
hundred and ten miles of levees from overflowing eight hundred and fifty thou- 
sand acres of land. The Loire has two hundred and eighty miles of levee for 
two hundred and thirty thousand acres of land. The lower Rhine in Ger- 
many is diked from one hundred and fifteen thousand acres, while the protected 
lands of the Oder amount to one hundred and seventy thousand acres and those 
of the Vistula one hundred and thirty-four thousand acres. 

The Mississippi River has seventeen hundred miles of levees which protect 
twenty million acres of land. The area which it drains is as large as the com- 
bined areas of Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Holland 
and old Germany and Austria. 

It is this tremendous water shed, a large portion of which is steep and sub- 
jected to the rainfall of tropical hurricanes, which makes the problem of the 
levees of the Mississippi River one of so much greater magnitude than that of 
the rivers of Europe or the problem of the Nile. While the Nile receives a 
tremendous tropical rainfall at the head of its basin, it flows or creeps for hun- 
dreds of miles through low flat jungles to be confined by cataracts below which 
afford the world's most wonderful natural basin for ponding the water, and 
in the five hundred miles of its lower reaches it has no affluent and practically no 
rain. 

Menes, who was the first king of record and who reigned in Egypt some 
five thousand years before the birth of Christ, is said to have found the land a 
swamp below Lake Moeris. He built levees which changed the channel of the 
river from the Lybian or west side of the basin to nearer the middle of the 
basin, where it has remained until this day. He also built levees to protect 
Memphis. Sesostris seems to have been active in the construction of levees for 
the protection of cities, while the custom in the earliest days seems to have been 
to leave the cultivated lands subject to overflow. However, thousands of years 
ago the system was begun of building levees all along the bank, with cross levees 
to hold the water which was permitted to pass through sluices in the main levees 
until the ground had been sufficiently watered to make a crop, and then to drain 
the water off through canals which lay back toward the hills, taking it again into 
the Nile near the sea. 

The Egyptians first protected the west or left bank of the river before any 
attempt was made to control the water on the other side. Under the Twelfth 
Dynasty, some twenty-five hundred years after Menes, levee and irrigation 
received great attention, and Joseph is said to have constructed the Bahr Yussuf, 
or Joseph's canal, which still irrigates a large area which otherwise would be as 
dry as the desert of Sahara, just west of it. 

Levee construction then was not what it is now. Contractors along the Mis- 
sissippi River in the early part of 1920 paid thirty-five cents per hour for the 
commonest negro labor with prices ranging up to fifty cents for loaders and 

40 



dumpers and a dollar or more per hour for skilled labor on the gas tractors and 
drag lines. Then labor was so scarce that often mules which cost four hun- 
dred dollars per head stood idle for days eating oats at one dollar per bushel 
and hay at fifty dollars per ton. 

When a Pharaoh, Cyrus, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar or Semiramis wanted 
to improve the Nile, the Tigris or the Euphrates, he sounded the war cry, offered 
free booty to all soldiers who failed to fall in battle, or she gave a pink tea to 
the cavaliers of her court, and forthwith fell upon a neighboring and unsus- 
pecting people. Whole nations were brought back captives. The men were put 
to work bearing earth in pans, while the women and children tilled the soil for 
what scanty food and clothing the captives received. The only expense to the 
work was the straw boss of the job. 

At the end of the seven lean years in Egypt, Joseph had gathered into 
Pharaoh's possession all of the livestock and the fee simple title to all of the 
land in Egypt save only that which belonged to the priests, in exchange for 
bread cards, and the people then offered themselves as slaves to work for 
rations alone. 

The entire cost to Pharaoh of the Bahr Yussuf probably was less than the 
smallest "station man" contract on the Mississippi River. 

Then the state of humanity was such that the priests had to shave them- 
selves from head to foot every other day that they might enter the temples free 
from lice. W r hat, then, must have been the status of the common laborer? 

Even to this day, however, every Egyptian must work free of pay on the 
levees during the entire flood period, supplying at his own cost cotton stalks 
and other material to protect the embankments against wave-wash. 

Yet during the Pharaohs, Ptolemies and Romans, the Egyptians so well 
understood the rotation between legumes and cereals that the fertility of the 
land was maintained. 

During these times, the water was permitted to remain on the land untiPthe 
sub-soil was so thoroughly saturated that crops which required more moisture 
than the surface soil would retain from the flood, were irrigated by hand with 
water drawn from wells, and the capacity of the subsoil to hold water for that 
purpose governed the location of the various capitals and larger cities. This 
system of irrigation is still practiced to some extent. 

Under Arab rule the population of Egypt dropped from 12,000,000 in 700 
A. D. to 3,000,000 in 1200 A. D. Then even the Arab awakened and resumed 
work on the Nile, to which Egypt has never turned in vain. In fact, Egypt is 
called the gift of the Nile and the river commonly is referred to in that country 
as a synonym for water. Where we say "high water" or "low water," they say 
"high Nile" or "low Nile." Since then, under French and later English direc- 
tion, the Aswan dam has been built and enlarged, and barrages, or dams with 
gates to control the flow of the water, have been built below, so that millions 
of acres now can be watered or dried at will, during any season of the year. 

With the Nile naturally high during August, September, October and Novem- 
ber; with the dates of the rises and falls almost as regular as the phases of the 
moon ; with a normal rise at Aswan of twenty-six feet and a maximum of less 

41 



than thirty feet; with twenty-three feet as the danger line at Cairo, and thirty 
feet as the highest water in forty years; with the high water mark in upper 
Egypt about three feet above the level of the land and less than twelve feet 
above the level of the land in the delta below Cairo, and with its discharge of 
water less than one-third that of the Mississippi River, the Egyptian engineer 
has a very different task from that of the engineer on the Mississippi River, 
which may fluctuate forty-five feet on the gauge of its Cairo or at Vicksburg 
without going out of its natural banks, while the Ward Lake levee line in Coahoma 
County, Mississippi, for more than half a mile averages more than thirty-six feet 
above the level of the land at its base. In fact, the Mississippi River has fluc- 
tuated sixty feet at Arkansas City without a break in the levee line. 

The thrifty systematic Hollanders have built dikes to reclaim lands from 
the sea, some of which approximate in size those along the Mississippi River. 
More than half of their country naturally is subject to overflow from the sea, 
the Rhine, the Maas or Muse, and the Schelde. Their levees facing the sea 
run as high as eighteen to twenty feet above mean flood level, while the Northern 
Lek and Southern Linge dikes are twelve to sixteen feet high. Some of the 
more exposed sea dikes and those along the rivers in dangerous places are of 
great width, but probably do not contain any more earth per lineal foot than the 
larger levees along the Mississippi River. 

While the Batavians, whom the Romans found in that country, had a num- 
ber of levees, mainly, however, for roads rather than for protection, the present 
system dates from the thirteenth century. 

Levees along the Mississippi River began with the settlement of New 
Orleans by the French. They built the first levee on the river for the simple 
reason that when they first tried to locate at New Orleans they found the town- 
site under water, as also the Sieur de LaSalle had found it in 1682 when he 
made the first voyage by a white man to the mouth of the river. In 1718 
LeBlond de Latour, the engineer in the party of Governor Bienville, built the 
levee along the river front where New Orleans now stands, and the colony set- 
tled there. 

For the next hundred and seventy-five years the story of the Mississippi 
River levees is a romance of struggle in which the levees gradually crept higher 
up the river banks on both sides, in which fortunes would be made on the rich 
lands back of them during the few years in which there would be no very high 
water, in which a great flood would come down, wipe out the small embank- 
ments and carry destruction with them, dishearten the ordinary souls, but only 
temper the metal in the hardier pioneers to a point of greater resistance until 
these heroes were making their last stand, brave still but exhausted, then the 
long arm of the United States government reached out in 1879 through the 
creation of the Mississippi River Commission with a promise of aid and a 
certainty of co-ordination in the work. 

The present levee system really dates from that time. 

Latour's levee was completed in 1727 so that it extended some eighteen miles 
up and down the river with New Orleans presumably protected. By 1736 the 
system extended forty-two miles on the left bank of the river, twelve miles 

42 



below the city and thirty miles above. The plan had been evolved of giving a 
planter land along the river in consideration of which he was to build and main- 
tain a levee along the front. In 1752 there were fifty miles of levee and they 
withstood the flood of that year, the state government aiding in the fight against 
the waters. 

Between 1785 and 1799 there was no flood, but in 1809 there came down the 
river such volumes of water that people in the lower valley thought that the 
great lakes had broken through into the Mississippi River. When Louisiana 
was admitted to the Union in 1812, there were three hundred and forty miles of 
levees on both sides of the river. In 1811, '13 and '15 there were combined 
floods out of the Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee rivers 
which played havoc along the lower river. 

In 1828, however, the men of the lowlands had erected a continuous levee 
from the mouth of Red River to a point sixty-five miles below New Orleans. 
In 1845 the great river improvement convention was held in Memphis and 
the national congress was urged to aid the local communities in the erection, 
maintenance and extension of the levee system, and the congress ordered a 
survey made of the Mississippi River. Four years later the national govern- 
ment through the swamp land acts gave to the states along the Mississippi River 
and its tributaries the wet lands in them, to be sold and the proceeds used in 
draining and protecting them from overflow. 

In the meanwhile the line of levee had been made continuous from the mouth 
of the Arkansas River south, with a height of one foot above high water mark 
and a base five feet for every foot of height. But the flood of 1844 wrought 
such destruction with this line and the wealth behind it that many of the planters 
abandoned their lands and moved with their negroes to Texas. 

Buoyed by the swamp land act by which Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkan- 
sas got some eighteen millions of acres of land for levee and drainage purposes, 
the riparian owners again went to work and during the six years without high 
water following 1851, they got the levees in better shape than they ever had 
previously been. 

Cairo boasted of the finest levee along the river. It was fifteen feet high, 
wide enough on the top for a street and a railroad and faced on the front with 
broken rock one foot thick. 

When the flood of 1858 started down the river, the Upper St. Francis Basin, 
from Commerce, Missouri, nearly to the upper edge of the New Madrid Ridge 
was completely leveed. The Lower St. Francis Basin, from the New Madrid 
Ridge nearly to the mouth of the St. Francis River had a levee all along the 
front with the exception of gaps aggregating some twenty-five miles. These lines 
were built under the state commission which had charge of the swamp land fund 
in co-operation with the planters who owned land along the river front. While 
there was a levee across a bayou in the upper end of Crittenden County which 
was some forty feet high with a crown of forty feet and a base of three hundred 
and twenty feet, the average height of the levees was only about three feet. 

The same agencies had built a levee from the foot of Crowley's Ridge at 
Helena complete to Oldtown and from there to Scrub Grass Bayou with an aggre- 

43 



gate of fourteen miles of gaps in the lower portion of the line. Thence to 
below the mouth of Arkansas River there had been no attempt at levees, and from 
the right bank of Arkansas River to the high land below Cypress Creek there 
were only three miles of levees. 

Arkansas and Louisiana combined had from there to a point far below 
New Orleans levees along the right bank of the river which were considered 
fairly good protection for the country back of them, and with gaps only where 
Red River came in and Bayou LaFourche went out of the main stream. 

On the left bank of the Mississippi River, no attempt had been made to 
levee the small pockets above the Mississippi-Tennessee state line but the Yazoo 
Basin was considered well protected by a line all along the river front nearly to 
the mouth of the Yazoo River. There was only one gap in the upper portion of 
that line and that was nearly opposite Helena, where a bank had caved into 
the river carrying the levee with it. The levee in that line where it crossed 
Yazoo Pass was eleven hundred and fifty feet long and twenty-eight feet high 
with a base three hundred feet wide. The average height of the Yazoo Basin 
levee was four feet. 

In the construction of her levee system Louisiana had gradually worked 
toward the present plan. Originally owners of land fronting on the river had 
voluntarily built some levees. The Spaniard had required him to do so. The 
state later passed an act prescribing that where a levee broke due to the negli- 
gence of the owner of the land he was liable for all damage to the land or 
property of others. Later Louisiana merged Carroll, Madison and Catahoula 
parishes into a levee district in which the two front parishes could be taxed 
for levees three hundred per cent of the state mill tax. Concordia and Ouachita 
parishes were given "plenary and unlimited" power of taxation' and action for 
levee work. 

However, the levee work in general in Louisiana during the few years pre- 
ceding 1858 was mainly in the hands of the police juries for the various parishes. 

The right bank of the Mississippi River in Louisiana met the flood of 1858 
with a levee line averaging less than five feet in height and of about the same 
width of crown, while the base averaged less than fifteen feet. On the left bank 
the height and crown were about a foot less than on the right bank, while the 
width of the base averaged a little more than ten feet. 

Mississippi in 1858 passed an act forming DeSoto, Tunica, Bolivar, Wash- 
ington, Issaquena, Yazoo, Sunflower, Panola and Tallahatchie counties into a 
levee district, but the act was not to become operative until 1859. 

These levees in the main had been built only for the protection of the lands 
along the river front and a few of the high banks of the streams and bayous of 
the interior. No one at that date thought of the other lands as ever being pos- 
sible of cultivation. Contemporaneous writers refer to them as swamps or jun- 
gles with no thought, apparently, given to their reclamation. 

Such, in brief, was the levee situation along the Mississippi River when the 
first of the floods of 1858 came down. It was the first real high water in seven 
years and one of the highest ever known. This flood had barely receded when 
the second rise came. This was quickly followed by a third and to cap the 

44 



climax of devastation, down came a fourth flood, this a combined flood from all 
of the upper tributaries and the worst that the river had ever seen since its 
variations have been recorded. 

Three and four foot levees were as mere potato rows in the face of that 
volume of water, and so late was the last of the four floods in passing away 
that only a few of the upper and higher lands were able to raise any staple crops 
at all. Bankruptcy followed in its wake, only to be followed in 1859 with more 
bankruptcy produced by the flood of that year. There was practically nothing 
left along the river worthy of being called a levee and those of the people who 
still had faith in the levees and vision enough to want to rebuild them were 
without resources and without support in their communities. Half of the land 
in Mississippi taxed for levees was forfeited to the state. 

In the meantime the levee board created in Mississippi organized on the first 
Monday in March, 1859, at Prentiss, then the county seat of Bolivar County 
and located about six miles south of where Rosedale now stands. Its personnel 
was: W. A. Raines, DeSoto County; James H. Anderson, Tunica; H. C. Cham- 
ber, Coahoma; C. J. Field, Bolivar; G. R. Fall, Washington; W. T. Barnard, 
Issaquena: H. Barksdale, Yazoo; M. T. Collier, Tallahatchie; A. Murdock, Sun- 
flower, and F. Moore, Panola. J. L. Alcorn, later governor, was elected presi- 
dent; Mr. Field, secretary; Ike B. Robinson, treasurer, and Minor Meriwether, 
chief engineer. Before this board had time to accomplish much the Civil War 
came on and practically nothing was done during its duration. 

In Arkansas little was accomplished during the same period, the planters 
mainly confining their activities as to levees with throwing up small embank- 
ments with their slaves to restrain water during medium floods from coming 
into the low places. 

The Lower Yazoo district, composed of Bolivar, Washington and Issaquena, 
was first to recuperate, and by act of November 27, 1865, organized with a board 
consisting of Isaac Hudson and Christopher Field, Bolivar County ; William 
Hunt and George R. Fall, Washington County, and W. S. Langley and W. T. 
Barnard, Issaquena County. In the early seventies a board was organized for 
the upper district, but the main thing that it seems to have done was to issue 
$1,800,000 in bonds on an authority to issue $1,000,000, of which one-third 
presumably went to levees. 

The national congress in 1879 created the Mississippi River Commission, 
but its funds for the first few years were meager and its authority to do much 
direct levee work not established. However, the mere existence of the com- 
mission causd hope again to spring up, local boards were created by the states 
along the river and the relations between these and the commission became stronger 
all of the time. 

With practically no prevention from floods the virulent men along the river 
front of the Upper Yazoo Delta, Cassidy's Bayou, Sunflower, Tallahatchie and 
Yazoo rivers and a few of the major bayous emptying into them were making a 
gallant fight to open up the country and till the fertile soil. The Mississippi 
legislature by act of February 28, 1884, created the board of levee commis- 
sioners for the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, and in April the board organized 

45 



with T. W. White of De Soto County as the first president and Reuh Page as 
the first secretary. By good fortune Major T. G. Dabney was chosen as the first 
chief engineer of the district. He has directed its policy with such skill that 
the Mississippi River Commission in its latest official report, while it states that 
all other levees along the river are in need of enlargement, says of Major Dab- 
ney's work: "The upper Yazoo Basin has been made entirely safe against all 
floods, except perhaps the extremest. In the event of the latter vigorous emer- 
gency work will, in all likelihood, prevent crevasse of the system or overflow 
of the basin." Among the strong men on the first board were Colonel W. H. 
Stovall of Coahoma, General B. S. Ricks of Yazoo, Colonel V. W. Sturdivant of 
Tallahatchie, Colonel C. L. Robinson of Tunica, J. M. Heathman of Sunflower, 
Captain Townsend of Coahoma and C. C. Crews. 

Between October 10, 1884, and March 1, 1885, two million cubic yards of 
earth were placed on the ninety-seven miles of this line by Irishmen using picks, 
shovels and wheelbarrows. 

Across from the upper portion of this levee line lay the lower portion of the 
St. Francis Basin extending from Helena, Arkansas, into Missouri, where the 
New Madrid Ridge affords the only point at which to begin a levee line. The 
effect of closing the Yazoo Basin was to raise the flood level in the St. Francis 
Basin. But a small fraction of its two and a quarter million acres was in culti- 
vation and each farm was compelled to. have places of refuge for man and beast 
from the almost annual high waters, while there were but three railroad tracks 
in the basin. 

The late Captain Henry Newton Pharr, then a planter and civil engineer 
at LaGrange, Arkansas, began in 1890 an agitation for the formation of the 
St. Francis Basin of Arkansas and Missouri into a levee district. With little 
support from any quarter and violent opposition in many directions, his brave 
spirit was as undaunted as it had been while building bridges and digging 
trenches for the Confederacy in the face of Federal bullets. By 1893 he had 
enough sentiment behind him in the two states to get acts through the legisla- 
tures of both of them creating the levee districts and donating to them the lands 
in their boundaries which had been forfeited to the state in default of taxes. He 
was the first president of the organization, but in a short time consented to 
become the chief engineer of the districts and H. P. Rodgers of Marianna suc- 
ceeded him as president of the board for the district in Arkansas. Hugh R. 
McVeigh was the first secretary and James Fussell the first treasurer of the 
permanent organization. Captain Pharr remained the engineer for the board 
until his death in 1897, and during that time performed a wonderfully useful 
work in the location and progress of the work and in keeping the people in the 
lower portion of the district in line while they were paying taxes for a levee 
up the river which made the water higher on them. His son, Harry Nelson 
Pharr, succeeded him and now is the engineer for the board in Arkansas. 

Meanwhile the levees in Mississippi had the same effect on the Arkansas 
territory between Helena and the mouth of White River that it had had on the 
St. Francis Basin and the result was the rebuilding of that line of levees which 
is commonly known as the White River system, extending from Crowley's 

46 



Ridge at Helena to the loop levee at the lower end known as Laconia Circle. 
The highest levee on the Mississippi River measuring fifty-three feet in height 
is in this line a short distance below Modoc. 

The Desha and Chicot county fronts in Arkansas were fortunate in receiv- 
ing aid from Louisiana in the rebuilding of their levee lines. The two Tensas 
Basins of Louisiana lie just to the south of them and in the event that water 
breaks through the barriers along either the Desha or the Chicot County front, 
it must pass down through Louisiana to the Red River to get back into the Mis- 
sissippi River. Captain J. M. Whitehill and Major John D. Adams were 
most active in the rejuvenation of that line. 

Louisiana through its state and local organizations had kept pace with Mis- 
sissippi in levee work, its main line on the right bank extending from Arkansas, 
with a gap for Red River to come in and Atchafalaya Bayou to go out, to below 
Fort Jackson, where the fluctuation of the river is very small and where there 
is little land between it and the Gulf. On the left bank the line runs from the 
high land at Baton Rouge to below Fort Philip, opposite the end of the levee on 
the right bank. 

While the local communities were straining themselves at times almost to the 
breaking point to accomplish these results, the national congress was becoming 
more liberal with the Mississippi River Commission in appropriations and broad- 
ening its scope so that it might directly aid in the building of levee for the sole 
purpose of protecting lands from overflow. The commission on its part was 
acquiring and systematizing the necessary data for the control of the river. For 
years it and the local boards worked independently, yet there was little or no 
friction and a rapid co-ordination of the work. 

The system was for the local authorities to locate the line of levees and 
secure the right of way. After considering the needs of each district the com- 
mission allotted to each a certain amount of its total congressional appropria- 
tion. Then the local and the government engineers agreed upon which portions 
of the work should be done by each. 

Some of the smaller districts for years have turned all of their funds derived 
from bonds and taxes over to the commission and the entire work in those dis- 
tricts was done under the direction of the government engineers. Other dis- 
tricts maintained and still do their engineering corps, but now the commission 
gives aid to a district only where the district hands over to the commission one 
dollar for every two dollars allotted by the commission, all to be expended under 
the direction of the engineers of the commission. 

The levee problem of the Mississippi River had always been too big for 
the local communities. It had always been national in its necessity and in its 
benefits. The recognition of this fact by the federal government has stimulated 
local activity in the matter of taxation and bond issues into the erection of a 
levee line in which there is universal faith. 

Now a flood equal to any of which there is a clear record can pass down 
the river and out the mouth without any disturbance to business. A reading 
of thirty-seven feet on the Memphis gauge in times past brought devastation 
to a large portion of Arkansas and Mississippi. Now a stage of forty-five 

47 



feet passes by without a crevasse and with farmers peacefully plowing at the 
very heel of the levees with a certainty of sowing and reaping. 

The Mississippi River Commission has established as the standard levee for 
the Mississippi River an embankment of earth free from timber upon a founda- 
tion from which all of the timber has been removed and the stumps blasted 
out and into which a ditch six feet deep and of equal width at the bottom has 
been cut near the middle of the levee line, the embankment to be three feet 
above the elevation to which the water would have risen in 1912 if there had 
been no break in the levee, to be eight feet wide on the top and to have a slope 
of three feet in width to one foot of height on each side. Thus a levee primarily 
has a width at its base six times its height plus eight feet. In addition to this 
if the levee be more than eight feet high it is to have on the land side a 
banquette coming to within five to eight feet of the top, ranging in width from 
twenty to forty feet and having a back slope of four to one. Under this 
specification a levee twenty-five feet high has a base of practically two hun- 
dred feet. 

However, Major Dabney and his associates in the upper Yazoo Levee 
district wanted a greater degree of security than this high standard. His 
specification is for the same elevation, but a crown of ten instead of eight 
feet and a back slope of four to one instead of three to one. His line of 
ninety-seven miles has an average of twenty-four feet in height, while for 
much more than half a mile the Ward Lake line averages thirty-six feet high, 
with a maximum of forty-two feet. The Mississippi River Commission in 
its latest report (1919) stated that that line was 94.8 per cent complete and 
Major Dabney says that by the end of 1921 it will be entirely up to his 
standard. 

Only one other of the larger levee lines on the river is comparable to this 
in the closeness with which it approaches the standard. 

In recent years the congress has added to the jurisdiction of the Missis- 
sippi River Commission all levees south of Rock Island, Illinois, and also has 
extended its jurisdiction up the Arkansas River to the east line of Jefferson 
County, Arkansas. The upper river districts, eight in number, are insignifi- 
cant in area as compared with the larger ones to the south. The extension up 
the Arkansas River was necessary because the floods in the Mississippi River 
backed up that stream, passed around the head of the Tensas Levee System 
in the Cypress Creek country and flooded lands back of the levee in Arkansas 
and Louisiana. Now the work is about complete of making a continuous line 
of levee from the highlands on the right bank of the Arkansas River down 
the Mississippi River to the mouth of Red River, cutting Cypress Creek in 
two and draining the upper portion of it down back of the levee through a canal 
into the big bayous which head near it. 

Adding these levees to the old main lines, the levee system of the Missis- 
sippi River is 1,732.71 miles long. The contents at the close of the year 1919 
were 349,280,992 cubic yards. It will require 123,755,570 cubic yards to bring 
the entire line up to the commission's standard of height and width. The 

48 



lower St. Francis line is more than 90 per cent complete, while the average 
for the entire system is 73.8 per cent. 

No man knows or ever will know what has been the cost of all of the levee 
work on the Mississippi River, for there is no record of early expenditures 
for the various lines of levee that were washed away by floods only to have new 
lines built in their stead and they in turn to suffer the same fate. However, 
fairly good records since the Mississippi River Commission and the beginning 
of its co-operation with the local levee boards indicate that the levee districts 
have taxed and bonded themselves for levees to the extent of $84,446,755, 
while during the same time the national government through the commission 
has extended aid to them to the extent of $40,763,735, or a grand total of 
$125,210,490 for the main lines of levees from Commerce, Mo., to the head 
of the passes. During the same time the total goverment and local expendi- 
tures on the small districts along the upper Mississippi River were sufficient 
to make the grand total $132,258,445. 

The lower St. Francis district with a little less than four and a half million 
dollars from the national government, raised on its own resources more than 
eleven millon dollars, or in round figures, $2 per acre and $5 per acre, or a 
grand total of $7 per acre. The upper Yazoo district has received from the 
national government only about a million and a half, or seventy cents per acre, 
against $14,379,766, according to the last Mississippi River Commission report 
raised by the district, or $7 per acre, making a total acreage levee cost of $7.70. 

The lower Yazoo district of Mississippi has cost the government $7,785,214, 
or $3.60 per acre, and the people of the district themselves $16,301,807, or 
$7.55 per acre, a total of $11.15 per acre, the heaviest cost per acre of any 
district along the river. With an area of about the same size as that of the 
upper Yazoo district, it has a line twice as long. Its tax per acre has been 
slightly larger than that of the upper district, but its line of levee is far from 
being as nearly completed. 

The line from Helena to the mouth of White River has been the most 
fortunate of any in that it has received the equivalent of $5.25 per acre from 
the river commission against a local expenditure of $3.95 per acre. 

The upper Tensas line in Arkansas and Louisiana has cost $10.90 per acre 
of which the local communities have paid within forty cents per acre of the 
amount contributed through the Mississippi River Commission. 

While these expenditures have been enormous, no man can estimate 
their value. 

The fertility of the alluvial lands of Mississippi and Arkansas was recog- 
nized long before the levee systems took formal shape. The lands along the 
river front and upon the higher banks of the alluvial bayous and streams 
brought prices as high, omitting the value of the timber which then was a 
liability and never an asset, as they did in recent years. Judge J. T. Rucks 
moved from the upper Cumberland River in Tennessee with his negroes to 
the high banks of Deer Creek in Mississippi and paid $40 per acre for wild 
land. This was in 1840. The price was not out of line with those that 

49 



prevailed for land in the Delta which was supposed to be above water and 
which has even fair chance for ingress and egress. 

But there was no value then for any but the high ridge lands and they 
were too few ever to make possible the development and settlement of the 
country. Roads and railroads were impossible, save an occasional trunk line 
crossing a basin with its traffic interrupted during a large portion of each 
year. 

In less than the last decade wild lands in Arkansas which had been forfeited 
to the State for non-payment of taxes have sold for fifty cents per acre with 
virgin timber on them, but no levees and then for $50 per acre with the timber 
removed and a levee built, but the land not cleared, while the cleared lands, 
purely for farming purposes, have sold at four times that figure. 

Without the levee there could be no resident there but the hermit or 
the frontiersman. With the levee there are the network of railroads, the 
hard-surfaced roads, the drainage canals, the bridges over streams and the 
unsurpassed civilization on the ideal plantations and in the thriving cities. 



50 



An Agricultural Empire 

By Prof. C. W . Watson 




HE greatest agricultural empire in the known world, and the 
only one that surpasses the great Egyptian alluvial section, 
the gift of the Nile, with the advantages not to be compared 
with in climate, rainfall, variety and richness of soil, is the 
Mid-South. This lies on the Eastern and Western banks of the 
great Mississippi River. The Mid-South covers East Arkansas, 
Southeast Missouri, West Kentucky, West Tennessee and North Mississippi. 
It extends 150 miles north and the same distance south of Memphis. It borders 
the Ozark Mountains on the west, extends 75 to 150 miles east of the Father of 
Waters, including a vast area in Eastern Arkansas, consisting of 3,000,000 acres 
of America's super-soil, which embraces twenty-two counties. This is protected 
by a mighty chain of levees skirting the west banks of the Mississippi River 
which runs north through the great alluvial section of Southeast Missouri, pro- 
tecting twelve or fourteen counties there consisting of three-quarter million acres 
made fertile by being the very cream of the Northern soil, skimmed by nature 
and delivered free by the great Mississippi overflows. 

Across from the Missouri line, east of the Mississippi River, is South- 
west Kentucky, a territory embracing some ten counties with about one-third 
million acres, which is adapted to all varieties of crops, but is especially known 
as the great tobacco section of this great belt. There the soil varieties meet 
the demand of the livestock grower, the truck farmer, tobacco and other forms 
of farming. From the southern border of Kentucky, lying between the Missis- 
sippi River on the west, the Tennessee River on the east and running to the 
northern border of Mississippi about four and a quarter millions of acres lie 
there in a section already known as a great livestock center and where cotton 
grows abundantly. The trucking interest is being developed and diversified 
farming has become general, except in the strictly alluvial section along the 
Mississippi River, where cotton predominates under plantation methods. 

Many people have been and are now trying to find a suitable place to live 
where the soil is fertile, the climate good with an abundance of good water, 
a rainfall sufficient for farm crops and where a family will have surroundings 
that make for both happiness and prosperity. 

It is not the purpose of the writer to paint a glowing picture that cannot 
be relied upon and is not a stern reality. The only purpose is to present the 
possibilities of the great Mississippi River Delta and the region to the east 
as far as the Tennessee River and the Alabama state line. 

51 



This wonderful territory includes counties where the climate is ideal for 
certain crops and rainfall sufficient to fully meet the requirements of the 
farmers' needs. The real money crops are rice, cotton, tobacco, cereal crops, 
fruits and vegetables. 

From the southern border of the Tennessee line, between the Mississippi 
River on the west, the eastern border of the State of Mississippi as far south 
as the A. & V. Ry., that runs east and west from Meridian, Jackson and Vicks- 
burg, the greatest varieties of soils are noted, which are adapted to the grow- 
ing of more different crops than any other state, with the exception, perhaps, 
of California. 

This vast area consisting of several million acres is not a new or untried 
country. Farmers have been making big crops here, while the nation has been 
growing and spreading over the continent, but it is just now that the economic 
advantages of these rich lands are becoming recognized as will be shown in 
succeeding statements of this article and by actual figures as a result of experi- 
ments and actual demonstrations on the various types of soils that were found 
to be especially adapted to that section. 

To those desiring to change their environments to a healthy, profitable, vigor- 
ous life in the open or to the farmers tired of the life struggle in the territory 
of high priced lands and where climatic conditions are not so favorable this 
country offers unusual opportunities. 

We have one section of this area that is adapted to the growing of rice, 
another for cotton, corn and fruit, grain, grasses and livestock. Another section 
has tobacco as its main money crop and in each section there is abundance of 
good water for every demand. Cheap fuel is in abundance and in all except the 
rice growing area, cheap building material is available at your very door. 

In other states farmers have been paying $200 per acre for lands to grow 
20 bushels of wheat while our $40 to $75 land will raise the same and more. 
To relieve any doubt as to the stability of farm land investments in this section 
examine the census and see that the land values have increased from 83 to 133 
per cent during the last ten years. 

Where capital and brains have been used, farms have been developed in 
the rice section and one acre has yielded as much as 51 bushels. One acre in 
the cotton district has yielded two or three bales of cotton. As high as 173 
bushels of corn per acre and 1840 pounds of tobacco to the acre have been raised. 
If the season permitted as many as five cuttings in one year, from five to nine 
tons of alfalfa hay have been raised from one acre. 

The average real estate agent would point out these lands as the "Garden 
of Eden" where one may get rich without work and state that the land will 
grow anything on earth, but be not deceived, for a new and undeveloped 
country never succeeded without work. Success can only come through the 
use of the ax, and the plow properly directed by brains, and drainage scientifi- 
cally applied. But the work supported by the natural advantage coupled with 
facts as a basis is what we want and in order to arrive at a fair conclusion, 

52 



each crop that is peculiarly adapted to a given locality will be taken up 
separtely. 

In the following paragraphs we shall take up the various crops giving 
area adapted to the different crops, yields, values, price of land, climate and 
the future possibilities of this section : 

THE DELTA OR COTTON TERRITORY. The alluvial area in the 
St. Francis Basin in Arkansas, the twelve counties in Southeast Missouri, the 
seven counties in West Tennessee and eighteen counties in North Mississippi, 
is known as the Delta soils and is fitted for intensive farming of all kinds. 
Cotton, corn, wheat, oats, rye and alfalfa may be raised. Alfalfa may be 
cut as many as five or six times in a year. All crops common to the Southern 
States yield abundantly here, but the soil and climate are especially adapted to 
the growing of cotton and will produce cotton year after year, with little or 
no apparent soil depletion. This is due to the fact that for ages the overflow 
settling from the Mississippi River (before the great chain of levees were 
built) has filled into depths ranging from five to one hundred feet. In this 
delta one may dig down from fifty to one hundred feet and the earth will 
show nothing but rich soil. Frequently in sinking Artesian wells, logs have 
been taken out which were buried forty or fifty feet in the earth. In Missis- 
sippi County, Arkansas, a log was found at a depth of more than two hundred 
feet beneath the surface. 

All of the essential ingredients of alluvial soil, such as lime, phosphorous, 
nitrogen and potash were washed down and piled up on the land. A chemist of 
Illinois recently analyzed some of this dirt and found in the first seven inches 
that it contained the following: 

Pounds 

Nitrogen 5,600 

Phosphorus 2,500 

Potassium 40,000 

The potash in this soil is sufficient for one thousand years' crop production 
while legumes will furnish a large part of the additional supply of nitrogen needed, 
aided in some cases by nitrate of soda. 

There are three distinct varieties of soil in the Delta region, buckshot, 
black loam and sandy soils. The buckshot is particularly adapted to the 
growing of from three to six cuttings of alfalfa and in most cases lime and 
inoculation are not necessary. 

COTTON. Sandy loam is the great cotton producer and is best for the 
growing of Irish and sweet potatoes. Cotton produces, under proper methods, 
from one to two bales per acre in this sandy land, while the average negro 
tenant is able to produce one bale to the acre. One cotton club boy produced 
2,883 pounds of seed cotton on this soil which had been farmed for twenty- 
eight years. 

Two distinct things make this great area available — drainage and levees. 
Lands that heretofore have been valued at from $3 to $10 per acre are now 
easily worth from $100 to $300 and when we find the real value in years to 

53 



come, this will sell from $500 to $600 per acre. No one realizes the great 
value of these acres and we know little of their productivity. We have not known 
the possibilities of this soil. 

RICE. A few years ago in Arkansas there were counties known as the 
prairie belt that runs parallel with the rich Delta, only being separated by what 
is known as Crowley's Ridge. This land, occupying fully three-fourths of the acre- 
age, was in wild prairie grass and was sold as low as $1 per acre. Later the 
experiment stations found that this land was especially adapted to rice, there 
being a hard-pan beneath the surface and ranging from two to six feet below 
the top soil. This hard-pan being impervious to water made the problem easy to 
keep water on the soil to meet the needs of rice growing. Water in unlimited 
quantities is available at a depth of from fifty to two hundred feet and by the use 
of large rotary pumps the rice can be watered abundantly. 

The yields of rice per acre vary from thirty to fifty-five bushels and as new 
and improved varieties are developed the yields are naturally increased. More 
modern methods naturally assist in production and in 1919 on 158,000 acres, 
6,162,000 bushels were produced. At a price of $2.40 received a bushel a 
total value of $14,789,000 was received for the crop. These yields are below 
the possibilities while in the rice growing area only forty per cent of this land 
is in rice. 

This soil is so adapted to rice that it will always be the real money crop 
of that section, but oats, cowpeas, corn and hay may be grown at a profit. 
Livestock, especially cattle, can be made a profitable industry. 

The rice farmer holds his land today from $100 to $200 per acre and as the 
more scientific methods are used this land will eventually sell for $400 per 
acre. The rice belt will, when the entire acreage is used and advanced methods 
adopted, easily produce sixty bushels to the acre. This section has advanced 
more rapidly than perhaps any territory in the South today. 

GOOD WATER EVERYWHERE IN THE DELTA. The Delta is now 
noted for its artesian wells, of which there are more than three thousand. 
These wells in the Delta are distinguished from the wells in other parts of 
the country, not only for the superiority of the water, but also because they are 
overflowing and will throw water twenty-five or more feet in the air, and when 
piped will run into the second story of a residence without pumping, thereby 
affording circulating water in the residences on the farms. Practically every 
plantation in the Delta may have its own waterworks and sewerage. These 
wells can be had at a cost of from $200 to $500 or $1 per foot. We have 
many instances of water being found at a depth of less than three hundred feet. 

OATS. Oats can be sown in October and November and harvested the 
latter part of May and first of June. Forty bushels per acre is a low average. 
Corn can then be planted and the middle to the latter part of July cow peas or 
soy beans planted in the corn. The corn matures and is harvested before 
the peas mature. Fifty bushels of corn is about the average where it is 
anything like properly cultivated. Then the peas or beans and corn stalks may 
be mown together, run through a thresher, the peas or beans saved and from 
two and one-half to three and one-half tons of hay saved, which is worth from 

54 



$15 to $22.50 per ton here. Please here note the following production from an 
acre of Delta land and its value : 

40 bushels of oats at 60c $24.00 

50 bushels of corn at 75c 37.50 

iy 2 tons hay (low estimate) at $12 30.00 

15 bushels peas or beans at $2 30.00 

Total $121.50 

This must not be considered a bare possibility but a fact which has been 
demonstrated many times. Any successful farmer in the Delta will verify this 
statement. There are some instances where the crop from land in one year has 
netted its purchase price. There are many instances where the profits from a 
place have paid for it in four to five years. 

Oats are sown during the latter part of October, early in November, or in 
February, and usually harvested in June, after which an additional crop of peas 
or other forage may be grown with no injury whatever to the land. It is even 
claimed by the best planters in the Delta that peas can be grown, the hay harvested 
and leave the land in much better condition. The average yield per acre would not 
be less than fifty bushels. 

As high a yield as 135 bushels of oats has been made in the Delta — a most 
remarkable yield — and one of the peculiar features connected with it is the fact 
that it was made on land that six years ago was in such shape that it was 
impossible to make any character of crop on it. But draining and rotating 
crops, together with intelligent handling, have brought this piece of land up to 
its present condition. No fertilizer of any kind was ever used on this land. 
The oats were seeded about October 15 at the rate of eleven pecks per acre. 
The yields were as follows : 

Bu. Per Acre 

Appier 1 18.0 

Hastings One Hundred Bushel 1 18.2 

Bancroft 1 19.0 

Red Rust Proof 135.6 

These oats were weighed and figured at thirty-two pounds to the bushel. It 
is interesting to note that the four native oats — Appier, Hastings One Hundred 
Bushel, Bancroft and Red Rust Proof — made an average of 122.7 bushels 
per acre. 

THE DELTA OF ARKANSAS, MISSOURI, MISSISSIPPI AND TEN- 
NESSE CAN BEAT THE WORLD ON CORN. Indian corn is the most valua- 
ble product of the farm in the United States, and it would seem that, owing 
to the adaptability of the soil in the Delta to corn growing, it would get more 
attention than it does. This neglect of one of the very best assets of this 
section is probably due to the fact that corn is not considered a money crop. 
Such a thing as com breeding is not known, and very little attention is paid to 

55 



the seed that is planted, and it is cultivated, with very few exceptions, in a 
very careless manner. It is true that every plantation has a few acres planted 
in corn, but one that raises enough to supply itself is the exception. A curious 
fact is that corn is not considered a money crop and at the same time it always 
finds a ready market for cash, and, too, without going further than one's 
neighbors. 

WHEAT AND CORN THE SAME YEAR. No further evidence is 
required to convince the most doubtful of the fertility of the Delta soil when 
it can be truthfully stated that wheat can be sown in the fall, harvested in 
May or June and followed with corn and cow peas, and a good yield of each 
grown and improve your land by it. Nothing takes as little from land as 
cotton does and the very fact that a large portion of the Delta has been cropped 
in cotton for many years and nothing done to build up the land, yet its produc- 
tiveness not impaired, is sufficient proof that wheat followed by corn and peas 
will help rather than injure the land. 

FORAGE CROPS. Millet is one of the forage crops that works well 
here and produces a large yield of hay and seed excellent for stock of all kinds. 

Rye is used largely in this section as a forage crop. It is planted in Novem- 
ber and makes fine pasture for cattle during the winter and for hogs in the 
spring up to March, when it is followed by corn, cotton, sweet potatoes and 
other crops. 

Kaffir corn works well as one of two crops on the same land. 

Cow peas has been the greatest beneficial crop of the South for many years, 
both as a forage crop and for its value in the amount of nitrogen it will return 
to the soil. The yield in the Delta is usually three tons of hay and twenty 
bushels of peas per acre. 

The soy bean, a most valuable forage plant, has become a wonderful pro- 
ducer in this soil and climate. 

Sugar cane — ribbon cane, as it is usually called — is cultivated here for syrup 
and from four hundred to six hundred gallons can be produced from an acre. 

Lespedeza, Bermuda, vetch, red, white, crimson and burr clovers do especially 
well in this territory. 

Field turnips, known as the "third crop," make an exceptionally good 
stock food. 

Peanuts are just becoming recognized here as a "money crop," and an 
average yield of fifty bushels of peanuts and one and one-half tons of hay per 
acre is obtained. One acre of peanuts will produce $64 worth of pork. 

This is a land ideally adapted for the truck grower. Irish potatoes — three 
hundred and ninety-six bushels per acre — have been grown ; sweet potatoes, 
four hundred and five hundred bushels to the acre is not at all unusual. Cabbage, 
sugar corn, cantaloupes, watermelons and other vined crops do well. Two crops 
of potatoes can be raised with ease. Onions, lima beans, eggplants, tomatoes, 
string beans, melons, figs, berries, grapes, quinces, peaches, apples and pecans 
are among the products of this soil. In fact, nowhere can be found a soil that 
responds so quickly to cultivation with a most generous growth of all kinds 
of vegetation. 

56 



Cotton in the Mid-South 



By Major George L. Fossick 




lOTTON has been called the fabric of civilization. The 
American Southland is the world's greatest cotton region. 
The Mississippi Valley is at the heart of that region. America's 
favorable trade balance depends upon cotton. Its manufac- 
ture is the very underpinning of British wealth. 

More cotton was produced during the last half century 
than in all the combined ages that had gone before. Yet the world begins to 
fear cotton famine. England foresees the day when America will spin all the 
cotton grown in America. New England views with troubled brow the increas- 
ing rivalry of Southern mills. 

Of the earth's more than 1,700,000,000 inhabitants it is estimated that 750,- 
000,000 are fully clothed, mostly in cottons, 500,000,000 are only partially sup- 
plied with clothing, and the remaining number are about as as artless of textiles 
as Adam was when he first say the Garden of Eden. 

America produces 60 per cent of the world's supply of cotton. Efforts to 
develop other sources of supply have been disappointing. The question is 
largely one of transportation and labor difficulties. The world still looks to 
America. It is estimated that cotton consumption increases at the rate of 
400,000 bales annually. American production during the past ten years aver- 
aged annually an increase of only 170,000 bales over the previous decade. 
Allowance must of course be made for acreage curtailment due to war conditions. 
Memphis, the hub of the Mid-South, stands at about the census center of a 
cotton producing belt encircling the globe. The cotton belt of the United 
States reaches from the coastal plain of the Carolinas far into the Red and 
the Grand prairies of Texas to a point where the annual rainfall, less than 
twenty-three inches, is so limited that cotton production is not attempted. 
Ten states of the American cotton region, the most important part of the 
world's cotton belt, comprise a sweep of country 500 miles measured north- 
ward from the Gulf of Mexico and 1,450 miles westward from the Atlantic 
seaboard, an area of 448,000,000 acres. Beyond are the irrigated fields of the 
Imperial and the Salt River valleys of California and Arizona, completing the 
belt from ocean to ocean. 

The last American crop, that of 1919-20 yielded 11,325,000 bales which 
were picked from 33,566,000 acres, or within about 4,000,000 acres of the 
greatest cotton area ever planted in America. Domestic spindles numbering 
34,000,000 spun industriously but could consume only about half of the crop. 



57 



Nearly 7,000,000 bales were exported to feed foreign spindles, which, at 
the present day, number about 150,000,000 of which 55,000,000 are in England. 
India and Egypt, in the order named, rank next to America, commercially, 
in cotton production. Cotton, a rough variety of which is highly prized for 
mixing with wool, and as a substitute for woolens, is believed to be indigenous 
to Peru. The Spanish invader found cotton growing in both Mexico and 
Peru. Western types of American cotton may have had their origin in Mexico. 
Native cottons grow beside American uplands from where Mount Ararat looks 
towards the Caucasus to the Kirghiz steppes along the shores of the Caspian 
Sea. In Turkestan cotton is grown farther north than anywhere else in the 
world, or at about the latitude of Chicago. A little cotton is grown along 
the river bottoms of northern Persia, and some claim that here the cotton plant 
originated. China's crop is estimated at 4,000,000 bales annually, but it is not 
enough to meet the needs for home consumption, and most of it is spun by 
hand and woven on hand looms. The fibre is short, rough and harsh, but 
clean. Cotton culture was introduced into Korea from its neighbor to the 
south where it had been known before the days of Confucius. Japan and the 
Philippine Islands, Borneo, astride the equator, and even Australia, grow 
some cotton. Its culture is not unknown in Greece nor in Italy. Spain was 
the first European country to grow cotton. There are unexplored possibilities 
in Africa from the Mediterranean Sea to the Cape of Good Hope. 

Great Britain has sought to develop cotton production in Northern Nigeria, 
in Rhodesia, Nyasaland, the Sudan, Uganda and British East Africa, but out of 
all of the long and arduous effort expended by all of Europe, in none of 
twenty years has Africa produced, outside of Egypt, as much as 100,000 bales 
of cotton. Yet England has not relinquished a cherished hope to perfect an 
all-around organization, inclusive of all operations, from the growing of the 
plant to the sale of the finished manufacture. England has planned to achieve 
industrial independence by growing within the British Empire all the cotton 
needed for British spindles. 

Commercially the importance of any region from the standpoint of cotton 
production is as much, perhaps more, dependent upon characteristics of the 
fibre produced, which enhance or impair its spinning qualities, or restrict its 
use, as upon the size of cultivable area suitable for plant development. Fibre 
of American Sea Islands, the most superb of all cottons, is silky, fine, strong 
and clean. It is used in spinning 150 to 400 yarns chiefly, but for experimental 
purposes has been spun in England up to No. 2,150, or from a single pound of 
cotton a single thread measuring more than one thousand miles in length. There 
are accounts in Bengal of muslin made so fine that when laid upon the grass 
and wet with dew it was not discernible. Bengal cotton is tinged, dirty and 
weak of fibre, and is seldom spun above 8s. Owing to its poor quality little 
cotton is exported from India to England, which leads in the manufacture of 
fine cotton textiles. About half of the crop, which averages around 3,000,000 
bales annually, counted in equivalents of 500 pounds each, goes to Japan. 
Cotton acreage in India ranges from 20,000,000 to 25,000,000 acres annually 

58 



with a ten-year average yield to each acre of only 77 pounds, compared with 
390 pounds in Egypt and 182 pounds in America. 

Egyptian cotton acreage is hardly one-twentieth that of the United States, 
but the value of the crop, owing to high productivity and excellent quality, is 
one-fifth that of the American crop. Production is limited to the Delta of the 
Nile and a narrow strip along the Nile, about 1,700,000 acres in all, yielding 
1,400,000 to 1,850,000 bales, 500-pound equivalents, annually. Egyptian cottons 
of the highest type, Sakellaridis notably, approach American Sea Islands in 
beauty of appearance and quality. The fibre of Egyptian cottons characteris- 
tically is silky, golden to rich brown in color, and of about the same diameter 
as American uplands. It staples from 1% to 1J4 inches and is suitable for 
spinning up to counts of about 150s, or 150 hanks of 840 yards each to the 
pound. The cotton area of Egypt is limited to the extent of land reached 
by irrigation. Lancashire dreams to claim more and more from the burning 
desert by watering from the Nile. England still turns with a longing hope to 
Mesopotamia and to the Sudan, and thinks some day to witness greater returns 
from the central table lands of the Deccan, the Valley of the Ganges, Western 
and Southern India, aided by irrigation and seed selection, but admits that 
progress will be slow and bought at great pains and with much money. Brazil 
has been looked upon as a land of promise, and Argentina has yielded some 
response to experimentation. But, after all that has been said and done, the 
relative importance of cotton producing regions has changed little in half a 
century. Some sections in America may look forward with confidence to 
further development. India and Egypt have about reached the limit of cotton 
production without serious interference with food production, which India's 
more than 300,000,000 population, and the 10,000,000 human beings of Egypt 
would reluctantly tolerate. 

Neither cotton growing nor the industry of its manufacture assumed much 
commercial importance until the invention of the saw gin by Eli Whitney in 
1792. The gin was the one thing essential to bring about a sufficient supply 
of raw material for the spinning machinery of Hargreaves, Arkwright and 
Crompton. 

No other material lends itself so readily to the skill of the manufacturer. 
The mercerizing process renders it not only as beautiful, but more serviceable 
than silk. It can be made closely to resemble woolen products, and it has 
never had to yield superiority in favor of linen fabric. There is no material 
that can be spun or woven that cotton cannot be made to replace in acceptable 
kind, and it is always more than an imitation. 

Nothing surpasses the crispy texture and bright, clear finish of fine organdies, 
the delicacy of sheer muslins, dimities, lawns and mulls, the attractiveness of 
zephys cloths and the ripe loveliness of madras, the richness of damask-like 
weaves and finishes. The Dacca muslin has been called "the woven winds of 
India." 

Cotton is equally adaptable to the making of overalls. Leave off the 
cottonades, the outing cloths, heavy domestics and drills, the cantons, ducks and 
denims — these and the other requirements of the masses — and the hum of 

59 



millions of spindles would be hushed. The industry of cotton growing would 
count its product in thousands instead of eight figures. Cotton would be the 
proud raiment of the rich, the coveted dream of the poor. 

Unsolved mechanical difficulties restricted the growth of the cotton industry 
until the days of Whitney and the English inventors. It was not until after 
the Civil War that production in the United States reached a total of 5,000,000 
bales. In 1914, the year in which Europe threw the match in the powder 
box 15,906,000 bales were produced. Yet the cotton plant has yielded clothing 
for man almost since the beginning of time. 

India emerged into the dawn of history arrayed in garments spun from 
cotton fibre. Women of Mesopotamia, at Mosul — whence the word muslin — 
"were gifted with such delicate sense of touch that they could spin thread of 
more than hair-like fineness. Cotton with them took the place of silk in the 
loom, and gold was not forgotten in the weaving." Herodotus speaks of trees 
which bore fleece as their fruit. Aristobulus and Nearchus, officers of Alex- 
ander the Great, made cotton the subject of a special report, and it was probably 
one of the things which attracted him to lead the armies of Macedon across 
the Indus. Theophratus wrote of the cotton plant three centuries before the 
Christian Era. Verres in Sicily used cotton cloth as covering for his tents. 
Lentulus Spinther is credited by Livy with having introduced cotton awnings 
into the theater at the Apollinarian games. Caesar covered the forum with 
them, and also the sacred way from his own house to the Capitoline Hill. 

The Aztec in Mexico and the Inca in Peru wove and spun before the 
coming of the invader from the Old World. Cortez received gifts of cotton 
fabric from the hands of a Montezuma, "curtains, coverlets, and robes of 
cotton, fine as silk, of rich and various dyes, interwoven with feather-work, 
that rivaled the delicacy of painting." 

The "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary" seems to have been nothing more nor 
less than a mythical conception of the cotton plant. The wonderful buds were 
said to burst when ripe and to expose to view tiny lambs whose fleece gave a 
pure white wool which the natives made into garments. 

Columbus is said to have found cotton growing on the West Indies. The 
natives spun and wove it. They made of it garments, fishing nets and beds 
which they suspended between posts and which they called hamacas — ham- 
mocks. Cabeza de Vaca in 1536, claimed to have seen cotton growing in what 
is now the southwestern part of the United States. 

There is abundant foundation for the popular belief that cotton was intro- 
duced into all of the Southern colonies by the first settlers. It was grown as 
far north as New Jersey, but at first derived its favor from the high regard in 
which it was held as a garden plant. The first seed, it is probable, were 
planted at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Early French colonists from San 
Domingo, it is believed, introduced cotton into Louisiana, and it is reported 
to have been seen growing at Natchez in 1722. Seed was imported from time 
to time from the West Indies, Cyprus, Smyrna and Turkey. Some of the 
early explorers of the Mississippi River claimed to have seen cotton growing 
wild along the banks of its tributaries. 

60 



Many hold that cotton is indigenous to all tropical and semi-tropical regions 
of the earth, reaching the highest state of development where soil and climate 
are most favorable and where proper culture lends aid to Nature's generosity. 

"No country in the world possesses the combination of advantages found 
in the southern part of the United States for profitable cotton cultivation. In 
this section the soil is naturally adapted to cotton growing, the climate is 
favorable, the labor is better than elsewhere, and the farm management more 
intelligent and experienced. Combined with these favorable internal condi- 
tions, are good transportation facilities." — Bulletin 76, U. S. Bureau of the Census. 

Short staple upland cottons, measuring J4 t0 l.'/s inches in length of fibre, 
constitute about 90 per cent of the American crop and are perhaps the most 
generally useful of all cottons. Such cottons, varying somewhat in lint char- 
acteristics, are grown throughout the length and breadth of the American 
cotton belt. 

Boll weevil, temporarily at least, has put an end to the Sea Island industry. 
Only 6,919 bales were produced in 1919, compared with 117,000 bales a few 
years before. 

A number of varieties of upland cotton stapling up to 1-5/16 inches and 
sometimes better, are now being grown successfully in America, notably upon 
the lowlands and silty second bottoms of the Mid-South. The long staple crop 
of the world approximates something around 2,000,000 bales annually of which 
not far from one-third comes out of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, the river 
counties of Eastern Arkansas and parts of West Tennessee. The lint of 
American long staple uplands somewhat resembles Florida Sea Islands, and is 
highly prized for spinning up to 70s, for fine constructions and for textiles 
requiring great strength such as automobile tire fabrics and tent cloths. They 
represent, except for special purposes, to which Egyptians are especially suited, 
the highest types of cottons available now that Sea Islands are passing. Long 
staple uplands are bred-up varieties dependent upon seed selection, congenial 
soil, favorable climatic conditions and proper tillage to foster growth. 

The eastern half of Arkansas and to the south a corner of Louisiana, 
to the north a wonderful country, that of Southeastern Missouri, across the 
great river portions of Kentucky and Tennessee west of the Tennessee River, 
and southward the State of Mississippi as far in the direction of the Mexican 
Gulf as Vicksburg on the west and Meridian on the east — this is the Mid-South. 
It produces 1,600,000 bales of cotton annually, of grade and staple suitable 
for every use to which cotton can be put. That can be said of no other cotton 
region. 

The soils of the Mid-South include the rich alluvial bottom lands com- 
prised in the Delta from Memphis to the mouth of the Yazoo River, similar 
deposits west of the Mississippi River and along its tributaries in Arkansas 
and Southeast Missouri, and the splendidly fertile Mississippi River second 
bottoms and silt prairies of Eastern Arkansas and Southeastern Missouri. 

"Alluvial bottoms of the Mississippi and other rivers. This region includes 
as the principal area the bottoms of the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois, 
to the Gulf. It also includes the bottoms of all other rivers within the cotton 

61 



belt, many of which are too small to show on the map. Much of the land is 
subject to overflow requiring protection by levees. Area, about 16,500,000 
acres. Elevation, to 300 feet. Surface level. Soils of the Mississippi 
bottoms, mainly brown or mottled clays, silt loams, and fine sandy loams with 
gray, light brown and mottled subsoils. Vegetation, largely cypress, red gum 
and oak. Production of cotton, about 940,000 bales. The important cotton 
growing section in this region is that known as the Yazoo Delta in which the 
average yield of cotton per acre is about 265 pounds, the highest in the cotton 
belt. In the bottoms of the streams east of the Mississippi River the prin- 
cipal soils are brownish loams, silt loams, and fine sandy loams, with yellowish 
and mottled subsoils ; west of the Mississippi the principal soils are chocolate 
red, brown and black loams, silt loams, and clays, usually calcareous. 

"Mississippi River second bottoms and silty prairies: These second bottoms 
are extensively developed in Southeastern Missouri and Northeastern Arkansas. 
They lie above overflow. The important soils are brown and gray silt loams, 
and fine sandy loams with light brown, gray and mottled subsoils. The gray 
soils are poorly drained. The better drained soils are extensively used for 
cotton, giving good yields." — U. S. Department of Agriculture, Atlas of Amer- 
ican Agriculture. 

Eastward of the alluvial region in Mississippi are the bluffs and silt loam 
uplands and the black prairies, a crescent-shaped belt naturally of high fertility 
but somewhat impoverished extending from Montgomery, Alabama, to the 
headwaters of the Tombigbee River near Tupelo, Mississippi. Northward and 
somewhat to the east to the Appalachian limestone formations skirting the 
valleys of the Tennessee River, are the clay hills extending from the Savannah 
River through central portions of Georgia and Alabama, the northeast corner 
of Mississippi to the Tennessee line. These clay soils yield about 145 pounds 
of lint to the acre. The Mississippi bluffs and silt loam uplands mentioned in 
the foregoing comprise nearly all of West Kentucky and West Tennessee and 
form a strip forty miles wide, bordering the Mississippi bottom lands on the 
east throughout the entire length of the State of Mississippi and to Lake 
Ponchartrain in Louisiana on the south. Elevation, 100 to 600 feet. Surface, 
level to undulating, badly gullied in places. Soils, mainly brown silt loams of 
loessial origin, becoming thinner along the eastern border. A narrow strip of 
the same soil occupies Crowley's Ridge, extending from Southeastern Missouri 
to Marianna, Arkansas. Yield of cotton per acre is about 200 pounds. 

The alluvial lands come first in point of productiveness. The alluvial soils 
of the Mid-South embrace an area of approximately 13,000,000 acres, only 
a small fraction of which has been brought under cultivation. The Yazoo 
Delta without fertilization, and solely dependent upon rainfall for moisture, 
produces an average of 265 pounds of lint cotton per acre. 

Rainfall averages 45 to 60 inches annually throughout the Mid-South. 
Precipitation is greatest, and, as a rule, is well distributed through the spring 
and summer months. The average is from 25 to 35 inches from March to 
August ; both months included, but the combined total for September, October 
and November, seldom reaches more than eight to ten inches. Well distributed 

62 



moisture through the spring and summer months promotes growth, while the 
dry weather in the fall gives the pickers a chance, and is essential to a crop of 
high quality. Thunder showers followed by days of sunshine are considered 
ideal weather for cotton growing. 

Mean temperature over the Mid-South is around 60 to 65 degrees, with the 
summer mean ranging from 70 to 80 degrees, averaging about 79, Fahrenheit. 
Soil and climate are two things essential to successful cotton growing. Cotton 
requires a long growing season. This is especially true of the long staple 
varieties. The season without killing frost averages from 220 to 250 days in 
the Mid-South. 

Cotton is a sun plant, a weed, which delights in plenty of sunshine and 
capable of withstanding high temperatures provided the supply of moisture is 
kept up. An average of only 23 inches of rainfall annually in the semi-arid 
regions of West Texas is considered too little for cotton. The cotton belt 
has an average summer temperature along its northern boundary line of about 
77 degrees, which seems about the dead line beyond which commercial produc- 
tion becomes unprofitable. Nearly all of the world's supply of cotton is grown 
between the Equator and the 37th parallel north, which passes through Ken- 
tucky and crosses the great river where the Ohio River makes its confluence. 

Experience has demonstrated that the Delta below Memphis, and the river 
basins in Arkansas produce both long and short staple cottons under practically 
uniform conditions year after year. This is important to the spinner. The 
uncertainties of climate in Texas and Oklahoma are handicaps to cotton grow- 
ing in those two states. Texas cotton is widely different in fibre characteristics 
from that grown east of the Mississippi River, and, naturally hard and wiry, 
when the growing season is dry the fibre is shorter and harsher than usual, 
while the color may have a reddish tinge. Many of the leaves dried up early in 
the picking season by heat and drought, become inseparable in the gin and 
reduce the grade, while the top crop may not mature, hence the "bolly" crop. 

When a mill finds from actual experience that cotton from a certain locality 
invariably meets its requirements it will be slow to make a change. Peculiari- 
ties of the various producing sections are well known to the trade. There are 
few markets such as Memphis, where every requirement can be satisfied. Mem- 
phis owes its reputation as a supply base for extra staples to the fact that lint 
from the alluvial regions of Arkansas, Mississippi and southeastern Missouri, 
handled through this market, retains, year after year, uniform length and strength 
of fibre, texture, etc. Long staple cotton is produced in small and scattered areas 
all over the belt, but, excepting on alluvial soils and where, in addition, the 
rainfall is at least 30 inches during the growing season, the disposition is to 
"run out," to deteriorate in texture, and length and strength of fibre, and in 
productivity as well. 

Within the memory of living man the wonderful alluvial farms of the Mid- 
South were a wilderness. In spite of the march of civilization fertile millions 
of acres still await the plow. One hundred years ago no cotton was produced 
in all this vast territory with the possible exception of a few bales in West 
Tennessee. Cotton growing on a scale commercially important was not begun 

63 



until the decade immediately preceding the Civil War which halted industry in 
the South and gave it a setback from which recovery in a generation was more 
than could have been expected. 

Of the 13,000,000 acres comprising the alluvial lands less than 30 per cent 
has been improved, and of the total area only: 10 per cent is planted to cotton. 
Of the Mississippi Bluffs and Silt Loam Upla ids, an area of 16,800,000 acres, 
about 40 per cent, has been improved and 1 1 per cent of the whole planted to cotton. 

Art and Science stand at the portals of a glorious destiny. The alluvial 
empire offers enterprise and industry the opportunity to numerical, financial and 
intellectual pre-eminence. Its resources beckon and out of its bounty there is 
enough to spare to enrich nations beyond seas and to add to the human enjoy- 
ment and usefulness of countless millions who speak in unknown tongues. 

The skill of the engineer has curbed the mightiest of waters. Completion of 
the levees to the point of definite security has given confidence to capital and 
impetus to road and home building, and to general development. The past pre- 
sents a story of achievement. The future promises greater things. Drainage 
has been a hard problem. Engineers are solving it. 

The Mid-South will not depend upon cotton alone. But the Mid-South will 
increase cotton production not only by planting more acres but by producing 
more cotton to each acre. Seed selection is becoming better understood and will 
grow in importance, methods of cultivation will be improved, invention will 
relieve the labor question with machinery, and perhaps some form of fertiliza~ 
tion, to hasten maturity, and to awaken dormant energies from the soil, may 
be found beneficial. 

The alluvial empire is the cream pitcher of the Mississippi Valley. The 
Great Basin embraces 1,256,000 square miles of territory, or nearly half the total 
area of the United States. The watershed of the Mississippi stretches from 
the Canadian Rockies, from the gold and silver lodes and the granaries of the 
west to the oil bearing sands, the coal and iron storehouses of Pennsylvania 
and the Alleghany divide overlooking the Atlantic seaboard. The alluvial 
valley is said to be an arm of the sea filled up by deposits of rivers which empty 
into it. Every particle of soil was brought to the place where it now is by 
flowing water. 

It has been estimated that at active rising stage the sediment carried by the 
Mississippi River past a given point is equal to 1,000 tons a minutes, enough to 
make a wall across the entire channel one foot thick in eight minutes. 

The sediment of which this alluvial soil is composed was collected atom by 
atom, through ages and ages of time, from the natural wealth of what are now 
states and provinces, numbering 32 in the United States and two in Canada, 
churned in the laboratories of the Mississippi and its tributaries — 15,000 miles 
of navigable streams — transported at floodtide along God's eternal highways, 
and deposited to enrich a future empire which was yet a wilderness of forest, 
of climbing, crawling, wandering vines, of canebrake and tall grass. 



The United States stands almost alone in the development of the cottonseed 
industry. Cottonseed grown in some other parts of the world are not so well 

64 



adapted to manufacture, and, m addition, the mechanical means, temporarily 
at least, are lacking. 

Cotton cannot be grown without producing cottonseed. About a ton of seed 
is produced for every two bales if cotton. Memphis, the hub of the Mid-South, 
and because it is pre-eminently ituated both as a concentration point and as a 
distribution point, is the greater cottonseed products market of the world. It 
holds a supremacy that is unchallenged. 

The cottonseed industry is a development of the last quarter of a century, 
although isolated and somewhat disappointed efforts may be traced back nearly 
one hundred years, and oil has been obtained from cottonseed by means of crude 
presses from time immemorial. As late as 1867 only four mills were in opera- 
tion in the United States. 

The remarkable development of the industry has been due to the perfecting 
of machinery for treating the seed, and to the discovery of new uses for the 
product. Hulls are in great demand for feeding purposes, cottonseed meal is 
extensively used in the manufacture of feed and fertilizers, and linters have 
been made a most valuable contribution to the manufacture of felts, cotton batts, 
absorbent cotton and explosives. Until within comparatively recent years the 
chief purpose in crushing the seed was to obtain oil. Cottonseed meal was 
considered of little value, and demand for the hulls and linters is of still more 
recent date. 

The United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, for the 
fiscal year ended July 31, 1919, shows that 4,478,508 tons of seed were crushed 
by 727 mills operating in the United States. The oil product was 176,711,000 
gallons, valued at $227,316,000, oil cake and meal 2,170,000 tons valued at 
$116,119,000, hulls 1,137,000 tons valued at $17,917,000, and linters 889,500 
bales of 500 pounds each, valued at $22,228,000. Total valuation $383,580,000. 

Not many years ago disposition of cottonseed, the surplus after needs for 
planting had been supplied, was a difficult problem. Now the dirt which attaches 
itself to the seed in the handling is about the only waste matter thrown away in 
the process of manufacturing. 

It was not until 1890 that the annual crush amounted to as much as 1,000,000 
tons. Fifty years ago only four per cent of the annual crop of seed was 
manufactured. 

Cottonseed was one of the most valued of all crops during the World War. 
Many men of enlightened opinion believe the war could not have been won 
without cottonseed products. Cottonseed furnished glycerine for the manu- 
facture of nitro-glycerine, cellulose for high explosives, meal cake from which 
was obtained an exclusive supply of nitrogenous materials, and which cake 
saved the drought-stricken herds of the west from starvation. From the oils 
were obtained more than one billion pounds of lard substitutes for animal fats, 
while the production of hog lard was only 800,000,000 pounds. 

The seed from a cotton crop of 12,000,000 bales is said to have a food value, 
when scientifically manufactured, equal to that of 2,484,000,000 pounds of hog 
lard and 192,00,000 bushels of corn, or 2,484,000,000 pounds of hog lard and 
19,800,000,000 pounds of wheat flour. 

65 



Oils derived from cottonseed furnish the best edible oils. Much cottonseed 
oil has been shipped to lands where olives are grown, and it has been shipped 
back as olive oil. It is a superior oil for packing purposes. Lard and butter 
substitutes made from cottonseed oil are in daily use throughout the world. It 
compares most favorably with, if it does not excel, olive oil for salad and 
cooking purposes. The vegetable fat is extensively used in the manufacture of 
soaps, candles and oil for miners' lamps. 

The oil to some extent has been used as a substitute for linseed oil, cotton- 
seed flour is said to be 25 times as nutritive as potatoes, five times as nutritive 
as cornmeal, and four times as nutritive as oatmeal. Encouraging experiments 
have been made with linters in papermaking. 



66 



Hardwood of the Mid -South 



By F . D . B e n e k e 



)ARDWOOD forests of majestic growth, though serving as a 
barrier to the complete development of the world's most fer- 

Hm//> tile agricultural lands, have furnished the Mid-South with an 
WW industry that has contributed enormously to the wealth and 
happiness of mankind. 
More than 1,500,000,000 feet of hardwood lumber is manu- 
factured annually by a thousand mills, large and small, in the Mid-South. It 
finds its way into the markets of the world to enrich the beauty of homes and 
the dignity of public buildings; to supply strong material for vehicles, agricul- 
tural implements and railway equipment, and to provide sturdy containers for the 
safe shipment of merchandise across continents and overseas. 

No other region in the world is comparable with the Mid-South in the 
wealth of its hardwood forest products. Millions of acres of virgin timber in 
the Mississippi Valley will supply generations yet unborn with the raw material 
for furniture, fixtures, flooring, interior trim, automobiles, wagons, farming 
implements, tool handles, railway cars, ships, sewing machines, shuttles, boxes, 
barrels, crates and a multitude of other commodities essential to civic and 
commercial progress. 

The hardwood forests of the Mid-South are centuries old. They were here 
when the first white man touched the shores of the New World. The under- 
growth in the valley woods was impenetrable when the intrepid Spanish, English 
and French explorers pressed perilously across the mysterious continent to the 
Mississippi River in quest of princely kingdoms, rivers of gold and pearls, and 
fountains of eternal youth. They stood silent and forbidding when the early 
settlement of America got feverishly under way. 

When the tide of immigration swung westward, Andrew Brown in 1828 
established the first saw mill in the Southern hardwood region at Natchez, 
Mississippi. It was a crude affair, situated on the high east bank of the Mis- 
sissippi River, but it served the pioneer needs of that early day. The lumber it 
produced was bound into rafts and transported on the broad bosom of the 
mighty river to points where communities were being hewn from the wilderness. 
This primitive mill has been in continuous operation for ninety-two years, and 
some of the original timbers are said still to be in use in the modern plant now 
operated by R. F. Learned & Son at Natchez. 

Throughout the Nineteenth Century the forests of Indiana, Ohio, Michigan 
and Wisconsin supplied the relatively modest requirements of those days for 

67 



hardwood lumber. It was not until the late eighties, when the northern forests 
began to be denuded, that the lumbermen turned toward America's last great 
reservoir of hardwoods in the lower Mississippi Valley, where, according to 
the United States Forest Service, 80 per cent of the hardwood area of 36,000,000 
acres, including the heaviest stands and most valuable species, was located on 
the alluvial bottoms of the Mississippi River Delta. 

New and crushing experiences awaited the pioneers who were first to invade 
the virgin forests of the Mid-South. They received a cold welcome from the 
people. Bankers looked askance upon their operations. They could obtain no 
local credit, and they must pay in advance for their every need. Their labor was 
unskilled in forestry or mill work, and consequently inefficient. They were 
oppressed by strange climatic conditions and overwhelmed by floods which 
swept unrestrained periodically through the woods, carrying priceless treasures of 
logs and lumber on their crests. 

Seventy-five per cent of the newcomers crashed upon the rocks of financial 
disaster. But the others stuck grimly to their hard jobs and laid a firm founda- 
tion for the Mid-South's hardwood industry, and, subsequently, for an agri- 
cultural empire. To these men of stout hearts and blind courage the South owes 
a debt of lasting gratitude. They blazed the broad trail through trackless jun- 
gles and assured the success of the lumbermen, the coopers, and the veneer, 
flooring and box manufacturers who swarmed in their wake. 

Many of the original pioneers long since have passed to their reward. Time 
has silvered the hair of the remnant of the band. The list of earliest lumber- 
men in the Mid-South includes I. M. Darnell and his sons, R. J. and Walter, 
E. E. Taenzer, Taylor & Crate, Anderson & Tully, John Dickson, the Bonners, 
the Cochrans, J. W. Wheeler, Moore & McFerrin, Nelson A. Walcott, Charles R. 
Palmer, Charles C. Gardiner, F. E. Stonebraker, O. B. Rife, the Howe Broth- 
ers, the Houston Brothers, Paepcke & Leicht, Russe & Burgess and others. 

The first Southern saw mills in the hardwood fields were located on the 
banks of rivers in order that logs could be transported by water from the for- 
ests that fringed the streams. In Memphis the mills were clustered along Wolf 
River, where a few of the largest yet remain. 

Only combination rail rates were available to the Northern markets, and 
manufacturers paid high tariffs to ship their lumber to Cairo, St. Louis, Evans- 
ville, Cincinnati and Chicago, the only important markets of that day. The 
commodity rates to world markets were to come at a later date. 

Timber was available everywhere at prices ranging from twenty-five cents 
to a dollar and a quarter per acre. The land frequently would be thrown in 
at that price, but the pioneers looked askance at property having no value, but 
possessing taxable possibilities. They were interested only in timber rights, and 
purchased largely tax titles giving possession of the stumpage. 

Nevertheless, a few of the early comers did buy the land and timber at 
prices ranging from $1 to $5. Perhaps it was forced upon them. It resulted 
subsequently that land ownership often made up for the frequent losses from 
strictly lumber operations. It was not until the dawn of the Twentieth Cen- 

68 



tury that the alluvial land on which the timber grew so luxuriantly began to have 
a tangible value of its own. 

One of the early and costly mistakes in the lumber industry was to apply 
Northern methods to Southern timber without taking into account the climatic 
differences. The pioneers found that Southern hardwoods were more porous, 
due to the longer growing season and the greater moisture from Delta soil, 
which resulted in greater shrinkage in the curing process. Boards cut on the 
Northern standard for inch lumber shrunk to less than an inch, and there was 
no market then for thin lumber. 

The pioneers learned through bitter experience that the insect pest, nurtured 
by the damper woods, were far more active South than North. To avoid the 
ravages of the bugs and worms they discovered it was unsafe to begin their 
heavy logging before the middle of September, and that all surplus logs must be 
run through the mills before June. Frequently, they discovered, the rainy sea- 
son in the autumn set in before they had a chance to create a surplus of logs 
for the winter run. There were years when excessive moisture barred them 
from the forests through the winter and spring months, whereas in the North 
they had logged without interruption through winter rain and snow. 

But the early difficulties were largely details of saw mill operation which they 
were able shortly to correct. The colossal problem they encountered after all 
was the marketing of the gum which grew so magnificently in the Mid-South 
forests. European consumers were quick to appreciate the artistry of gum, 
which they call satin walnut, but domestic buyers scorned to consider it because 
the lumbermen had been unable to find the secret of curing gum lumber prop- 
erly. The objection was that gum warped and cracked. Architects would not 
specify it, nor would builders take a chance upon its use. 

Gum trees greatly predominate in the Mississippi Valley forests. The run 
of gum is 50 to 60 per cent. Without a domestic market for gum it was too 
costly an operation to remove the oak, hickory, ash and elm trees alone. It was 
too great an economic loss to abandon or deaden the stately gum trees. 

About 1912 the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wisconsin, con- 
ducted by the United States Department of Agriculture, began a series of experi- 
ments to find the correct method of curing this outcast among domestic woods. 
Within a short time the cure was discovered that made gum as dependable as 
the older and more established hardwoods. 

With a view then to creating a domestic demand for gum lumber, a group 
of Southern saw mill operators met in Memphis late in 1913, and organized an 
association which had for its chief purpose the advertisement of their major 
product. The success of the publicity campaign was little short of phenomenal. 
Gum soon gained popularity so rapidly that it threatened to displace some of the 
older standard woods. 

Practically all objections to gum and prejudices against its use gradually 
disappeared as the educational propaganda spread through the national field. 
Within less than ten years it has become a favorite wood for the manufacture of 
high grade furniture and interior finish. It probably is the easiest of all woods 
for the veneer mills to handle. Rotary cut red gum, carefully selected to show 

69 



grain and figure, so strikingly resembles Circassian walnut that only experts can 
distinguish one from the other. 

Red gum is more distinctive of the Mid-South than any of the other hard- 
wood species. It attains its finest growth and texture in this region. The 
United States Forest Service says "its commercial range is restricted to the 
moist lands of the lower Ohio and Mississippi basins and of the southeastern 
coast. It is one of the commonest trees throughout the hardwood bottom type of 
forest, and reaches a large size. These forests will furnish a supply of this wood 
for all its many uses for years to come. The hardwood bottoms are for the 
greater part overflow land. The soil is alluvial and generally of a great fertility, 
and the tree growth for the most part extremely rapid." 

The gum tree produces two distinct varieties of lumber. The high grade 
cabinet wood comes from the heart-wood of the log, and is known as red gum. 
Sap gum is the sap wood, although it may be partly from the heart, and is of a 
lower grade commercially. It goes largely into the manufacture of wagon box 
boards, vehicle bodies, wood pulleys, core stock, ceiling and siding, coffin boards, 
barrels, packing boxes and crates. 

Approximately one-third of the veneers manufactured from domestic woods 
are made of red gum. It is splendidly adapted for cutting into thin sheets and 
takes glue better than any other wood. It is manufactured into rotary cut, 
sliced and sawed veneer. It is used for a wide variety of purposes from light 
weight fruit packages to the best grades of richly colored and highly figured 
panels used in furniture, pianos and the most expensive and artistic architec- 
tural woodwork. 

Red gum is used extensively in the manufacture of high grade furniture, 
built-in furniture, stairwork and car construction. It is often finished to imi- 
tate the more costly woods, such as black walnut, cherry and mahogany. Two 
other important uses are for doors and interior finish. Red gum has a close 
grain, and is free from resinous matter which makes it difficult to ignite and 
easy to keep aseptic. Many of the finest hotels, banks, clubs, office buildings, 
apartments, dwellings, hospitals and churches are finished with red gum doors 
and trim. 

But red gum, though almost exclusively a product of the Mid-South, is 
only one of the hardwood group that attains gigantic growth and superior tex- 
ture in the Mississippi Valley forests. This region likewise is the home of red 
oak and white oak— the wood of the ages — and of ash, elm, hickory, maple, 
poplar, cypress, tupelo, Cottonwood, sycamore, persimmon and other species. 

The highest grades of hardwoods go into millwork, furniture, agricultural 
implements and vehicles. The bulk of the lower grades is consumed in the box 
factories, but the low grades go also into woodenware, novelties and miscel- 
laneous products. 

Within recent years the automobile industry has become one of the largest 
users of hardwood lumber. Normally, 500,000,000 feet of hardwood lumber 
is consumed annually in the manufacture of automobiles and trucks. Ash, 
maple and birch are used principally for the frames, elm for the interior of the 
bodies, yellow poplar, black and Circassian walnut, birch and red gum for the 

70 



finish of tops and bodies, and hickory for the wheels. It requires thirty-three 
board feet of hickory for each set of wheels. 

Manufacturers of agricultural implements buy chiefly high grades of oak, 
maple, cottonwood, gum, ash, hickory and elm. Handle manufacturers con- 
sume hickory, ash, maple, oak, gum and elm. 

Large plants located near the hardwood forests have reduced the cost of 
hardwood flooring to such extent that it is no longer considered a luxury in 
homes, as was the case only a few years ago. Hardwood flooring is found 
nowadays in the more modest homes as well as in the palatial dwellings. The 
highest grades of hardwood furniture likewise are within reach of the masses. 

Hardwood lumber goes into the manufacture of so many commodities that 
a complete list of its uses would make dull reading. It may be interesting to 
relate, however, that the bats used in organized baseball are made of Southern 
ash, and that persimmon supplies the shuttles in the cotton mills and the shanks 
of golf sticks. 

The hardwood industry of the Mid-South is in its infancy still. One may 
read the reports of economic alarmists and gain the impression that the great 
hardwood forests will be denuded within the life of the present generation. Such 
assertions are wholly untrue and misleading. Thirty years ago even the lumber- 
men believed that the hardwood timber supply in Indiana, Michigan and Wis- 
consin was exhausted, yet many large saw mills have been in continuous opera- 
tion in those states, and the present timber supply seemingly is as good as ever. 
There are millions of acres of virgin timber in the Mid-South that have yet to 
hear the ring of the ax. 

Hardwood timber tracts in Arkansas and Mississippi have been bought up 
largely by the saw mill operators for a future source of supply near their 
plants. Lumbermen in quest of hardwood timber must look chiefly to Louis- 
iana for forest tracts. Many splendid blocks of hardwood timber now held by 
lumber manufacturers will not even be entered for twenty or twenty-five years. 
In addition to the supply in the forests, there remains an infinite amount of 
merchantable timber on the plantations of the Mid-South. 

Modern methods of operation have eliminated much of the waste of natural 
resources so apparent a few years ago. The great trees are used for the manu- 
facture of commercial lumber. The smaller trees are utilized by the cooperage 
industry. The cord wood and tree tops are consumed by the chemical plants 
which produce wood alcohol, charcoal, and acetate of lime for fertilizer. 

Following closely on the trail blazed by the lumbermen are the agriculturists. 
Timber has been removed from thousands of acres in the rich alluvial region of 
Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Some of the most productive plantations 
in the Delta country today were covered only a few years ago with dense growth 
of timber and underbrush. 

At present the supply of cutover alluvial land is greater than the demand, 
but it will not always be so. In some sections of the Mid-South even now the 
native demand for cutover land exceeds the supply. The lumbermen generally 
have adopted liberal policies in disposing of small farming tracts to Southern 
farmers from the hill country. 

71 



The average Northerner still thinks of the Delta country in terms of half a 
century ago. He is just now beginning to learn that the levee system has con- 
quered the turbulent Mississippi River, and that malaria, typhoid and other 
preventable diseases are disappearing as drainage proceeds in the cleared areas. 
He is learning, too, that good roads and good schools are being provided every- 
where in the alluvial region. 

Northern soil chemists have proclaimed the alluvial soil of the Mid-South 
to be the richest and most productive in the world, not even excepting the famous 
Delta of the Nile. Phenomenal crop yields produced without fertilizer by 
farmers who understand agricultural principles furnish corroborative evidence 
of the fertility of this super-soil. 

Within the next quarter of a century the cutover tracts of the Mid-South 
will be the most sought after land on the face of the globe. The prejudices 
against this country which still exist by reason of ignorance will disappear, and 
the small farmer from the North, the East and the West will lead the van of 
eager buyers. Thus the land once spurned as valueless is destined to become an 
agricultural Paradise, producing with equal abundance a large portion of the 
raiment and food for mankind. 

Again let it be emphasized that the hardwood lumberman is the pioneer lead- 
ing the Mid-South to a higher civilization. The log roads that he built through 
the swamps in the early day are integral parts of the present trunk line rail- 
ways traversing this rich region, and his log trails of yesterday have become 
the improved highways of today. He is removing the barrier to the full devel- 
opment of the Alluvial Empire, and he has contributed enormously to this 
region of infinite possibilities — the Mid-South. 



72 



"The Heart of the Valley" 




I XW MONTGO MERY 



The region covered by this map has the most fertile alluvial 
soil in the world and splendid soil in the higher regions. In it 
are grown the finest cotton in the world and the finest dark 
tobacco. It is the greatest hardwood lumber region and the 
largest rice region in the United States. In it is the largest truck- 
ing region in the Mississippi Valley. It is well watered and 
fully covered by railroads. It is fast becoming the richest pro- 
ductive agricultural and livestock region in the United States. 



73 




Jttajor <§. OT. JHacrae 

/^ftOUR score and two years of as nearly correct life as mortal 
t&n man can live on this earth, of service to his Master and his 

FW6 fellow man, and of devotion to duty, may be said truthfully of 
Wl Major George Wythe Macrae, now rounding out sixty-one years 
in Memphis, widely known financier and philanthropist, gentle- 
man of the old Virginia school, of classic education, wide read- 
ing, congenial disposition, respected by the entire community and loved by all 
who know him. Born May 28, 1838, in Fauquier County, Virginia, the son of 
Bailey W. and Sarah J. (Stuart) Macrae, he was educated at the Academy 
in Warrenton, Virginia, and finished his course at Stewart College, Clarksville, 
Tennessee, now the Southwestern Presbyterian University, of which he has 
been a director for nearly forty years and which he now is actively engaged in 
trying to move to Memphis, and expand into an institution worthy of Presby- 
terianism. He came to Memphis sixty-one years ago and he and the late 
Dr. D. T. Porter formed the wholesale grocery and cotton factoring firm of 
Porter & Macrae. Save for an interruption on account of the Civil war in 
which Major Macrae enlisted as a private, this firm stood for nearly forty years 
surpassed by none in this section for honesty and efficiency. For nearly thir- 
teen years, following 1894, he was the president of the Memphis National Bank 
and the Memphis Savings Bank. For about twenty years he was the president 
of the Chickasaw Cooperage Company, which from a small beginning has 
become one of the leading concerns of its class in the United States. During 
these years of active business, Major Macrae acquired many excellently located 
pieces of business property, but during the time that liquor was currently sold 
in Memphis and the rental from its dealers was the best, Major Macrae stead- 
fastly declined to lease any of his property for that class of business. He did 
not believe that the saloon was good for the community from a moral stand- 
point and had the courage of his conviction in that line as in every other. His 
duty to his God, his family and his fellow man was ever uppermost in his mind. 
His business acumen was great enough for him to make a fortune, every dollar 
of which is "clean." For years he has been president of the Cossitt Library, 
for a quarter of a century a director in the Second Presbyterian Church, Inc., 
and for nearly half a century a ruling elder and a teacher in the Sunday school 
of that congregation. He has never entered politics, save for the exercise of 
his influence and suffrage for the side of right, decency and honesty. Major 
Macrae has been married twice, first in Clarksville, Tennessee, on September 13, 
1866, to Miss Fannie Morris of Kentucky. Their only child is Mrs. Walter 
White. On March 2, 1881, he and Miss Blanche L. Avent, daughter of the 
late Dr. B. W. Avent, were married. Five children were born, of whom Mrs. R. 
B. Lacey, Mrs. F. M. Crump and Mrs. B. A. Bogy survive. 



74 




(3 





PuC4,CL-C^ 



I. M Stratton 




jESLIE MARTIN STRATTON, probably the most active and 
widely interested business man in Memphis, Tennessee, was born 
in Lebanon, Wilson County, Tennessee, February 23, 1881, the 
son of Golladay and Louisa (Norman) Stratton. At the age 
of twelve years he was a page in the State Senate. He filled the 
same position two years later, and then went into the commer- 
cial field as a clerk in a grocery store. In that as in everything else that he has 
gone into, he excelled. In 1900, he came to Memphis, worked for four years 
for the Cudahy Packing Company and then organized the L. M. Stratton Com- 
pany, wholesale grocers. From the beginning this has been one of the most 
active concerns in the city and it soon became one of the most successful and 
grew steadily until January 1, 1920, when it and the W. C. Early Company, a 
strong old concern, were consolidated under the name of the Early-Stratton 
Company. Mr. Stratton is the executive head of the consolidated business, 
probably the largest in its line in the Mid-South. He is president also of the 
Stratton-Warren Hardware Company, the Mississippi Valley Furniture Com- 
pany and the Memphis Queensware Company. He is also vice-president of the 
Stratton Automobile Company and a director in the Union & Planters Bank & 
Trust Company. In addition to these concerns in the direction of which he is 
active, he is interested in many smaller concerns in the city. Few men have 
been able to accomplish in a full lifetime what he has done in fifteen years, but 
during that time probably no other man living in Memphis has devoted as much 
of his time and energy to the public welfare. He is president of the Y. M. C. A. 
and a member of the board of trustees of the Leath Orphanage and board of 
advisors of the Y. W. C. A., treasurer of the Methodist Hospital and superin- 
tendent of the Sunday School of Saint John's Methodist Church. When cam- 
paigns for money for all purposes became so frequent during the World war, 
no man in the city was more active than he with both time and money in helping 
to put them over the top. The same elements which made his business career so 
remarkable, made him one of the most efficient men in all these campaigns. 
Mr. Stratton has never sought or held an elective office, but from the time that 
he was a page in the State Senate, he has taken a keen interest in that art. In 
1911, he served as a member of the County Election Commission and two years 
later as a member of the State Election Commission, doing wonders in both 
positions toward clarifying elections. In 1919, he was chairman of the citizen's 
committee which placed in office by handsome majorities a City Commission 
standing squarely for business and not political administration. Mr. Stratton 
and Miss Katherine White married January 15, 1902. They have eight chil- 
dren: Frances; Andrew C. ; Leslie M., Jr.; Alice; Louise; Phil Warren; Kath- 
erine, and George Marshall. 



79 



<&. %. Jftt^ugf) 




|?J5<y3EAVING the University of Mississippi with the degree of 
^~K3) B. A. and leader in his class, Guston Thomas Fitzhugh earned 

L7§n enough by teaching for two years to complete his education in 
[sjjj the law school in which he then had a high ambition, but even 
^_ito) his young dreams in Smith County, Mississippi, did not reach 
JSJXl the height to which he has attained in that profession in 
Memphis. In two years he returned to the University, completed the two years' 
course in one year and at once moved to Memphis, in 1889. From the first he 
took a high stand at the bar and clients came rapidly. Both a student and an 
orator, he was equally at home in any of the courts, but he steadily appeared less 
in criminal courts and more in chancery. In the politically tempestuous '90s, 
he and the late Senator E. W. Carmack were close personal and political friends 
and Captain Fitzhugh's oratory and judgment were of great value to the suc- 
cess of their plans. He has ever been active in politics, not as a candidate for 
office although often urged by leaders of successful elements to be a candidate 
for governor and senator, but for the promotion of an idea or the election 
of a candidate with an ideal, and always on the side of right, honesty and decency. 
He was an ardent advocate of prohibition and always stood against boss rule. 
But Captain Fitzhugh has never allowed his political activities to retard his 
legal progress. The climax of his efforts at criminal law was the successful 
prosecution of the Coopers for the murder of Senator Carmack — the most bril- 
liant trial in the annals of Tennessee when you consider the personality of the 
victim, the defendants, the counsel and the witnesses. Probably his greatest 
success in his profession grew out of his masterly handling of the ouster and 
impeachment cases — in the former removing numerous officials and blazing a 
trail through virgin forests in which the Supreme Court followed against the 
fight of brilliant opposing counsel, and in the latter maintaining the integrity 
and lofty ideals of the judiciary and thus earning the laurel wreath before 
Tennessee's High Court of Impeachment. Captain Fitzhugh enlisted in the 
Spanish-American war and served through to the end as a captain. During 
the entire period of the World war he gave a large part of his time to war-work 
activities. As a member of the educational commission of the M. E. Church 
(South), he assisted in establishing Emory University of whose board of trus- 
tees he is a member, and he is closely identified with the great Methodist Hos- 
pital in Memphis. The son of Lewis T. and Juliette (Delony) Fitzhugh, Cap- 
tain Fitzhugh was born in Smith County, Mississippi, August 31, 1866. He 
and Miss Josie Millsaps were married in Jackson, Mississippi, April 17, 1901. 
They have three children: Millsaps; G. T., Jr., and Mary. He is a member of 
St. John's M. E. Church, the Tennessee Club, Memphis Country Club, City Club 
and Chamber of Commerce. 



80 



C. 3B. &mitf) 




jHARLES DONOVAN SMITH, for many years one of the 
leading contractors of the United States and for the past 
twenty years one of the most active and progressive business 
men of Memphis, Tennessee, was born December 11, 1864, in 
Iowa, the son of Robert Donovan and Mary (McLean) Smith. 
He really is a Mississippian, as his father was born and reared 
in Yicksburg and returned to Mississippi soon after his son's birth and was a 
planter in Yazoo County. At the age of sixteen years, Mr. Smith entered the 
line which became his main life work when he went to work as rodman for the 
engineering corps locating the railroad from Meridian, Mississippi, to New 
Orleans, now the New Orleans & Northeastern Railroad. Before the comple- 
tion of the survey, Mr. Smith became levelman for the party. His father took 
the contract for the construction of the railroad and Mr. Smith worked for him 
first clearing the right of way and later became superintendent of construction. 
In 1886 his father and he formed the contracting firm of R. D. Smith & Son 
and the first contract in which Mr. C. D. Smith had a direct interest was the 
construction of a twenty-mile railroad for the Pratt Saw Mill Company from 
Verbena, Alabama. Upon the completion of that contract, Mr. Smith bought 
his father's interest in the firm and with his brother, Mr. Walter Lane Smith, 
formed the firm of C. D. Smith & Company. His progress in this line of activ- 
ity was so rapid that soon they became the leading contractors in the South, 
injecting into the work his own wonderful energy, his rare capacity for organi- 
zation and a system the like of which no contracting firm in this section of the 
country had previously known. His firm constructed in the State of Mississippi 
one thousand and eighty miles of railroad. For twelve consecutive years it was 
engaged in construction work for the Illinois Central and Yazoo & Mississippi 
Valley railroads, doing practically all of their work south of the Ohio River. 
His firm built the direct line of the Y. & M. V. road from Lake Cormorant to 
Tutwiler, Mississippi, which, all things considered from the contractors' view- 
point, was one of the most difficult pieces of work his firm did. His firm also 
built the Illinois Central's line from Corinth, Mississippi, to Haleyville, Ala- 
bama. In the development of the transportation system for Greater New York, 
Mr. Smith and his associates built a section of the subway from Flat Bush 
Avenue, Brooklyn, to the Manhattan Bridge. His firm built for the Santa Fe 
Railroad the line across the Mojave desert from Parker, Arizona, to the main 
line, ninety-eight miles, hauling all water for man and beast an average of 
twenty miles. Another large contract was the construction of the Atlanta, 
Birmingham & Atlantic railroad from Brunswick to Birmingham. Mr. Smith 
and Miss Vida Vandegrift of Birmingham were married December 22, 1892. 
They have one child, Marie V. 



85 



W. Jf- bailor 



tt^TjIlOMAS FRANK GAILOR, Memphis, Tennessee, third bishop 
'^yx of the Diocese of Tennessee, was born in Jackson, Mississippi, 
\ «n September 17, 1856, the son of Frank M. and Charlotte (Mof- 
\§?J fett) Gailor. His father was prominent as the editor of a 
,-i£x newspaper, and as a brave Confederate officer was killed at the 
^^^U battle of Perryville. His mother was an Irish lady of strong 
character. After her husband's death, she brought her son to Memphis, where 
she made every effort to educate him for the Church. After graduating from 
the city schools, he entered Racine College, Wisconsin, taking his bachelor of 
arts degree in 1876, and master of arts in 1879. In the latter year he also took 
from the General Theological Seminary in New York his degree of bachelor 
of sacred theology, was ordered deacon and began his ministry at Pulaski, 
Tennessee. He was ordained priest in 1880. Two years later he was called 
to the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, with which his relations 
have continued to the present time. He has served therein as professor of ecclesias- 
tical history, chaplain and vice-chancellor, as a member of the board of trustees 
since 1893 and chancellor since 1908. It was as chaplain that he became widely 
known for his sound scholarship and eloquence. In 1890 he declined an election 
to the bishopric of Georgia. In 1893 he was consecrated bishop-coadjutor of 
the Diocese of Tennessee. He became bishop of the diocese upon the death of 
Bishop Quintard in 1898. He has occupied the Episcopal residence in Memphis 
for more than twenty-five years, during which time he has been a leading citizen 
of the city and state, giving his time and talents freely for the advancement of 
the higher civic interests. Although he has administered the affairs of a large 
and exacting diocese, he has unsparingly answered the frequent demands of the 
larger interests of the church throughout the country. He has been chairman of 
the House of Bishops for the past decade, and upon the reorganization of the 
administrative departments of the Episcopal Church in the United States in 

1919, he was elected president of the newly created executive council for three 
years, thus becoming the executive head of the church in this country. It was as 
such that he attended the Lambeth (Pan-Anglican) Conference in England in 

1920, where he preached the great sermon of the Conference in Saint Paul's, 
London, and the sermon in Westminster Abbey at the Thanksgiving service for 
Americans. Among his many honorary degrees are Doctor of Divinity from 
Oxford University, England, conferred in 1920. He has made twelve notable 
contributions to the literature of the church. He is vice-president for the South 
of the United States Chamber of Commerce. He and Miss Ellen Douglas Cun- 
ningham of Nashville, Tennessee, were married in 1885. Their children are: 
Frank H. ; Miss Charlotte M., and Miss Ellen D. Gailor. 



86 




Co, 




Clarence ibaunbera 

|LARENCE SAUNDERS, head of the seven-million-dollar 
P'gg'}' Wiggly Corporation, Memphis, Tennessee, with oppor- 
tunity for but little education, with no chance in life save what 
his fertile brain evolved, has, at less than forty years of age, 
made name, fame and fortune for himself, not by the old 
^jS^£^^S^ route of raising prices, but by an original system of saving 
money to the consumers on necessities of life. Mr. Saunders was born in 
Amherst County, Virginia, August 9, 1881, the son of Abram Warwick and 
Mary (Gregory) Saunders. He attended school until fourteen years of age and 
then went to Palmyra, a few miles down the Cumberland River from Clarks- 
ville, Tennessee, where he worked as clerk in a grocery store from 1896 to 1900 
and then moved to Clarksville, where he spent from 1900 to 1904 in the wholesale 
grocery store of Hurst, Boillin & Company. Then he came to Memphis and 
worked first as a salesman for Shanks, Phillips & Company and later for other 
wholesale grocers until 1915. Out of his experience in the large number of 
failures in the retail grocery business and consequent frequent losses to the 
jobbers, due largely to credits in both lines, grew his organization in 1915 of 
the Saunders-Blackburn Company, wholesale grocers, selling for cash only, and 
two years later he worked out the Piggly Wiggly plan of a retail grocery where 
each customer is his own clerk, pays cash as he walks out and carries his own 
groceries home, thus eliminating all loss from credits and dispensing with all 
man-power except the cashier. The system has proved itself the cheapest by 
which groceries have been sold to the consumer and still leave a reasonable 
profit to the dealer. The first Piggly Wiggly opened in 1916 at No. 79 Jefferson 
Avenue, with a system originated by Mr. Saunders, and fixtures and arrange- 
ment designed and patented by him, and accompanied by the most meteoric 
advertising campaign ever seen in Memphis which later became one of the most 
effective ever seen in the United States. There are now five hundred Piggly Wig- 
gly stores in twenty-nine of the United States, and their business is in excess of 
five million dollars per month. Due largely to the presence of twenty-eight 
Piggly Wigglies there was no profiteering in groceries in Memphis during the 
palmiest days of that custom. If the present rate of growth is maintained the 
Piggly Wiggly stoes during 1921 will be the largest grocery retailer in the 
United States. Mr. Saunders' charities have been the most extensive of any 
in this section of the country, including $30,000 recently to the Methodist Hos- 
pital, and large amounts for the Baptist Hospital, Y. M. C. A., Red Cross, Sal- 
vation Army, and all other worthy causes. Mr. Saunders and Miss Caroline 
Walker of McLeansboro, Illinois, were married October 6, 1903. Their chil- 
dren are Lee ; Clarence Saunders, Jr., and Amy Clare. He is a member of the 
Memphis Country and Colonial Country clubs. 



91 




;HOMAS KADER RIDDICK, lawyer, capitalist and business 
man, Memphis, Tennessee, was born July 9, 1851, at Macon, 
Tennessee, the son of Edward Garrett and Harriet Mayo 
Riddick. In those days his native county of Fayette was con- 
spicuous for its educational institutions and Macon contained 
two colleges. He received the degree of bachelor of arts from 
the Masonic College there at seventeen years of age, and in February, 1872, 
was graduated from Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee, with the 
degree of bachelor of law. Mr. Riddick located first at Augusta, Arkansas. In 
the Spring of 1873 he had repeated attacks of malarial fever, and was advised 
by his physician to return to Tennessee in order to get rid of the malaria. When 
he followed this advice, his parents prevailed upon him to settle in Somerville. 
The people of his home county quickly recognized his ability as a lawyer, and 
from that time his clientele grew steadily, until today it is not surpassed in 
number or in personnel by that of any attorney in the Mid-South. For a time 
in Somerville, he and the late Charles A. Stainback were associated together, 
but most of the time he was alone. The courts of Fayette County in those days 
did not contain enough litigation to consume his energy, and he opened a law 
office in Memphis, building up a business here which so far surpassed his home 
practice that in 1897 he moved his residence here. Since that time he has been 
a leading figure, not only in the courts, but in all public affairs and in all move- 
ments for the upbuilding of Memphis and the surrounding territory. His most 
conspicuous early case in Memphis was in 1907, when he procured from the 
State Supreme Court a decision in the case of Malone vs. Williams, ripping the 
notorious ripper bill into shreds. The case is reported in Tenth Cates, and 
established the premise that the General Assembly by a mere act cannot relieve 
an elected officer of his duties and give them another under the guise of a change 
in the name of the office. Another of his leading cases was in the decision which 
he secured after a bitter fight permitting the consolidation of the Equitable and 
Memphis gas companies. He was one of the counsel for the defense in the 
litigation of Patterson vs. Galloway, in which the Supreme Court held that in 
the management of the Patterson interests in the transfer and coal business the 
late Robert Galloway had always acted properly. Recently he won before the 
United States Circuit Court of Appeals a judgment for $97,000 for the Merchants 
Cotton Press & Storage Company against the Gulf Compress Company. His 
most recent service to the public was in securing the J. T. Harahan bridge. He 
and Miss Amelia Pulliam were married October 24, 1882. Their children are 
Edward Garrett, Miss Harriet M., Miss Betty R. now Mrs. Raymond Manogue 
and Mrs. Amelia R. Stanford. 



92 




/? /o 




8. C. Jennings; 




LEXANDER EPSIE JENNINGS, Memphis, Tennessee, mer- 
chant, planter, philanthropist and church worker, all on a 
gigantic scale, was born near Water Valley, Mississippi, Sep- 
tember 10, 1866, the son of Zachariah David and Charlotte 
Temple (Hale) Jennings. After having gone through the 
Water Valley high school and the sophomore year at the Uni- 
versity of Mississippi, he took charge of his father's plantation on Cassidy's 
Bayou, near Sumner, Mississippi. After two years, at twenty-one years of age, 
he returned to Water Valley, where he and his father organized the firm of 
Z. D. Jennings & Son, general merchants. Mr. Jennings, after his father's 
death in 1904, continued to operate the Delta plantation and developed it into 
one of the most productive in the state. In 1913 Mr. Jennings moved to Mem- 
phis and became an active citizen. Entering heartily into its commercial, social 
and benevolent life, knowing no race or creed, he has endeavored to help all, 
and organized the Jennings Furniture Company. Mr. Jennings had joined the 
Baptist Church in Water Valley when he was thirty-three years of age and 
during the remainder of the time that he was in Mississippi, he had been one of 
the most active men in the state in the progress of that denomination as well as 
in all other good lines. In fact, with the exception of Major Millsaps, the Jen- 
nings family has given more money to Christian education than has any other 
family in Mississippi. A few months after having joined the church, Mr. Jen- 
nings was chosen president of the board of trustees of the Baptist Orphanage, 
then a small institution. When he left Mississippi, it was one of the largest 
institutions of the kind in the South. Soon after coming to Memphis he was 
elected chairman of the finance board of the Baptist Memorial Hospital, which 
office he still holds and he has seen that institution develop into one of the larg- 
est in the South. He has given with great liberality both of his time and money 
to achieve this result, as well as to the other causes of his church and in fact 
every other movement for the advancement of the community. For twenty 
years he has recognized that the greatest happiness in this life is in service to 
others and the predominating feature of his character is not that he may accu- 
mulate but that he may use what he accumulates for greater service to humanity. 
A large part of his fortune is due to his faith in the alluvial lands. He owns 
three of the finest cotton plantations in the St. Francis Basin of Arkansas and 
is one of the largest cotton producers of that State. Mr. Jennings is a member 
of the Central Baptist Church ; the board of trustees of the Porter Home & 
Leath Orphanage ; the Rotary Club ; the Memphis Country Club, and Chamber 
of Commerce, and is a Shriner and a Knight Templar. He and Miss Dixie 
Buford were married December 31, 1891. Their children are David Buford, 
Louise and Esther. 



97 



Jfranfe Jf. fttll 




jOURTESY is a word worn threadbare through constant repeti- 
tion, and unhappily, the seed of good advice as to courtesy 
often falls on barren soil. The career of Frank F. Hill, and 
the standing of the Union & Planters Bank & Trust Company 
are proof that where courtesy is persisted in in dealing with 
the public, success is assured. President of the Union & Plant- 
ers Bank, Mr. Hill, just in the early prime of life, has made a mark for himself 
that few men many years older can equal. The rank of that bank as one of 
the largest and most progressive banks in Dixie is a monument to his ability 
as an organizer, as an executive, and especially in picking good men, giving 
them responsibility, and leaving them alone. Original and independent in thought 
and action, calm in judgment, he brought to his bank the new order that con- 
verted a stolid, passive bank into a thriving, attractive public-service institution. 
Born June 3, 1874, of Mary M. and the late Napoleon Hill ; educated in the city 
schools, and Sewanee, the conspicuous success of his father, who was one of 
the leading men of Memphis and a distinguished figure in Memphis early commer- 
cial history, attracted him as a boy, so that his father was persuaded to give him a 
clerkship in the cotton house of Hill, Fontaine & Company, while many others 
of the same station went to college. Later he engaged in insurance and real 
estate business, but success only stimulated his early ambition to preside in an 
up-to-the-minute bank. Chosen vice-president of the Union & Planters Bank 
in 1908 (a director since his twenty-third year), in 1915, he was chosen presi- 
dent, and the growth of the bank shows the measure of success he has brought 
it. The courtesy, rather the cordiality, that is distinctively in his bank is typical 
of his own personal qualities. He made his institution the first state bank in 
Tennessee to join the Federal Reserve System, and also instigated the movement 
to establish a branch in Memphis of the Federal Reserve Bank. A director and 
officer in numerous enterprises and social organizations, he is notably president, 
Blufr City Abstract Company; Hill & Lawrence, Inc.; Mammoth Spring Milling 
Company ; Mammoth Spring Electric Light Company ; vice-president, Memphis 
Lumber Corporation ; Memphis Clearing House Association ; Bankers Club of 
Memphis ; Member Tennessee Club, Country Club, Chamber of Commerce, 
Memphis; New York Yacht Club; Bankers Club of New York; Chicago Exmoor 
Country Club; Cape Cod (Massachusetts) Woods Hole Golf Club; a Shriner, a 
32d Degree Mason, treasurer De Soto Lodge of Masons, Life Member in Elks, 
served one term as a member of Memphis Board of Public Works. He married 
Miss Lizzie Willins, and is the proud father of four splendid children, Napoleon, 
Elizabeth W., Frank M. and Marywood. He is known for his courtesy, sin- 
cerity and staunch devotion to his friends. A gentleman "to the manner born," 
devoid of pretense, and enriched with democratic demeanor, a lover of the fine 
arts, and a true sportsman. 



98 



Josepf) JJetotmrger 




| IS marvelous business career, which has been one of continued 
expansion, began at the age of 18 years when his disabili- 
ties were removed by the Legislature of Mississippi and he 
took charge of his father's business. He was born in Coffee- 
ville, Mississippi, on June 12, 1858, the son of Leopold and 
Esther Lichtenstadter Newburger. He attended Spring Hill 
College, Alabama, and completed his education in Mobile in 1874. In 1879 he 
organized the firm of Newburger & Kory in his native town, and in 1881, Joseph 
Newburger and his brother Edwin bought out the interest of their uncle, Mr. A. 
Kory, and the firm continued business under the name of Newburger Brothers 
for a number of years and was subsequently purchased by Edwin Newburger. 
In the meantime, 1885, The Newburger Cotton Company, which was the medium 
through which Mr. Newburger spent most of his energy for years and through 
which he amassed a large portion of the magnificent estate which he now pos- 
sesses, was organized by him and the offices moved to Memphis in 1896. 
Mr. Newburger has always been largely identified with planting interests, owns 
several large plantations in Mississippi and takes great interest in farming and 
stock raising. In connection with his great export cotton business, and later 
for pleasure, Mr. Newburger has made numerous trips to Europe, and is 
familiar not only with all the countries on that continent, but most of the cities. 
For instance, when the Congregation Children of Israel had outgrown its old 
synagogue and he assumed charge of the forces to erect a new one on Poplar 
Avenue and Montgomery Street, he announced that he wanted it to be a repro- 
duction of St. Sophia at Constantinople, and the classic structure came forth a 
thing of beauty. Mr. Newburger has probably more different lines of activity 
than any other man in the Mid-South, not only commercial, financial and manu- 
facturing, but eleemosynary as well. He is president of the Newburger Cotton 
Company, Inc., of the Memphis Packing Corporation, of the Memphis Rice 
Mill, and of the Joy Rice Milling Company at Wheatly, Arkansas. He con- 
trols twenty-six cotton compresses in the best locations in Tennessee, Mississippi, 
Arkansas and Louisiana. He is a partner in Silvan Newburger & Co., dealers 
in future and spot cotton, New Orleans ; partner in Newburger Company, plant- 
ers and stock raisers in his native county; partner in J. & S. Newburger & Co., 
Fall River, Massachusetts, cotton brokers ; partner in J. C. Doyle & Co., farm 
and timber land dealers. He is a member of the New York, New Orleans and 
Memphis Cotton Exchanges, and associate member of the Liverpool Cotton 
Exchange. He owns the Newburger Linter Company and the Haileybury 
Frontier Mining Company, and is a partner of Samuel Newburger & Company, 
New York. He is president of the Congregation Children of Israel ; member 
of the boards of managers of the Methodist Hospital, Crippled Children's 
Home, Elizabeth Club, new Jewish Hospital, Federation of Jewish Charities, 
and National Board of Jewish War Relief. He and Miss Hetty Cahn Kosman 
were married June 14, 1907, their children being Joy and Mary Newburger. 

103 



W. <&. fames; 




jHOMAS GRIFFIN JAMES, Snarkey, Mississippi, is one of 
the strongest characters in that land of big men, of genteel 
ancestry, classic education, striking appearance, of ultimate 
courage yet gentle as a woman, rare in his capacity to organize 
and lead men, unsurpassed as a planter or business man in the 
Delta, one of the most successful and useful citizens of his 
state, whose integrity has never been doubted nor whose honor questioned, 
loving and beloved by his friends. Mr. James was born December 28, 1861, in 
Yazoo County, Mississippi, the son of Thomas Griffin and Jane Elliott (Foote) 
James. In 1873, his father bought the original Sharkey Plantation. The main 
ridge back of Mr. James colonial home on this tract probably has produced more 
cotton per acre than any other tract of the same size in the world. Mr. James 
grew up on the plantation, being educated in the common schools of the county 
and finishing his education at Emory & Henry College in Virginia and at the 
University of Mississippi. He finished school none too robust in health and 
instead of locating on his father's plantation, bought a ranch near Wichita, 
Kansas, where he spent six years, breeding and finishing white-faced cattle 
which topped the market at the Kansas City stockyards. In 1888, he returned 
through the country in a wagon to the Delta and took over the management 
of the Sharkey Plantation, then some twenty-five hundred acres, his parents 
moving to Oxford to complete the education of their grand-children. Mr. James 
put into the management of the plantation a degree of energy, tact and judg- 
ment rarely equalled and at the same time began to expand, buying the Elm 
Lake plantation just east of the Sharkey tract, and later adding adjoining 
tracts until his individual acreage in the Delta now aggregates eight thousand 
acres. Much of this was wild land when he bought it and on the remainder only 
the high ridges were opened. He was a pioneer in tile drainage and has cleared 
some six thousand acres, now as productive and highly improved as any in the 
Delta. He was a leader in diversification, and one sun went down on the car- 
casses of two hundred and fifty-one dressed hogs in his various lots. Having 
established his plantations on a solid basis, Mr. James branched out into other 
fields. He organized and is president of the Bank of Tallahatchie at Sumner 
and the Tallahatchie Home Bank at Charleston ; bought a two thousand-acre 
plantation, "Pine Crest," in the hills near Charleston and established the finest 
Duroc-Jersey hog breeding place in the United States, headed by Scissors, easily 
premier herd sire of that breed. He is president of the Tom James Oil Company 
with large holdings in the Osage, Oklahoma, fields. Mr. James and Miss 
Memory Marks were married December 23, 1885. Their children are Miss Sal- 
lie (now Mrs. Hugh L. Gary), Thomas G., Jr., and Mary Memory. His second 
marriage was to Miss Maude Keirn. Their only child is Walter Keirn. 



104 



M. C. 3 ofmson 



^ILLIAM CUMMING JOHNSON, manufacturer, business man 
and capitalist, Memphis, Tennessee, was born in this city 

Wt|u\ May 22, 1870, the son of John; Cumming and Elizabeth 
[Jw (Fisher) Johnson. His father was one of the leading busi- 
ness men, a pioneer manufacturer and probably the most 
generous philanthropist in Memphis for a generation. 
Mr. Johnson attended Prof. Wharton S. Jones' preparatory school, and then 
went to the Southwestern Presbyterian University at Clarksville, Tennessee. 
On the completion of his literary course there, Mr. Johnson went to the Uni- 
versity of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he specialized on chemistry, particu- 
larly as that science might be applied to the products of cotton seed. Returning 
to Memphis at the age of twenty-two years, he organized the Tennessee Fibre 
Company, with some of his boyhood friends as associates, and they began oper- 
ating in a small way in their first plant where the Southern Railway and 
Linden Avenue join. The main purpose of the factory was the manufacture of 
fibre and feed from the hulls of the cotton seed. Mr. Johnson was the originator 
of the process to be used and designed the machinery for it. From the first it 
was a success under his direction as general manager of the plant and treasurer 
of the corporation. Mr. Johnson again pioneered in perfecting a process for 
chemical purification and bleaching his product of cotton fibre, making it suit- 
able for use in gun cotton and smokeless powder. He also first used low grade 
cotton linters for the same purpose, and these two products supplied the chief 
ingredients of the powder used in the World War, during which period the 
industry assumed enormous proportions resulting in great profits to the entire 
South. Since the war Mr. Johnson has perfected a process for making the fibre 
from cottonseed hulls into paper stock and allied products. Mr. Johnson was 
elected president of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce in April, 1917, just 
after the United States entered the war, and devoted almost his entire time to 
war work and efforts to better the conditions of his city. He led the patriotic 
efforts of the Chamber of Commerce in Liberty Bond, war savings stamps and 
many other drives. During his administration the Chamber of Commerce was 
given the task by the United States government of locating and establishing 
Park Field. Mr. Johnson takes more satisfaction in his record as a pioneer 
in malaria control work in Memphis and Shelby County than in anything else 
he has done. He is vice-president of the Broadway Coal & Ice Company and 
and a large real estate operator, and interested in many other enterprises 
in the city. He is a charter member of the Memphis Country Club and for many 
years has served on the board of directors of the Y. M. C. A., and as chair- 
man of its finance committee. He and Miss Evangeline Harvey were married 
November 25, 1897. They have four children, all boys. 



109 





&. €. i. OTiton 

[OBERT EDWARD LEE WILSON, of Wilson, Arkansas, son 
of Joseph L. and Martha Davies Wilson, was born on French- 

R(£S. man's Bayou, in Mississippi County, Arkansas, on March 5, 
fey 1865. His father moved to that place from Tipton County, 
Tennessee, in 1847. As there were no local schools, the son 
was sent back to Tipton County to be educated. He returned 
home in 1880, and began to lay the foundation of his fortune. No man ever faced 
a more arduous task. The country, though as fertile as the valley of the Nile, 
was a wilderness, and there was not a railroad within sixty miles of it. Mr. 
Wilson had indomitable courage, energy and faith, and, what was still more 
important, he had vision. He thought and planned years ahead of his time, and 
with him the difficulties of the present evanesced, and its hardships entirely 
vanished, in the perspective of the splendid future which he clearly foresaw. 
So he bought a few acres and started a small saw-mill. And then he bought 
more land, and still more land. As he cut the timber he cleared the land. Today 
he is one of the largest manufacturers of hardwood lumber in the South, and 
he owns more than forty thousand acres of the richest land in the world, more 
than fifteen thousand acres of which are in a high state of cultivation. Mr. Wil- 
son always took a great interest in the general development of his section. He 
was a pioneer advocate of the St. Francis levee. He organized the first drain- 
age district in his county, in the face of fierce opposition. He constructed a 
model public road at his own expense. He was a leader in the movement for 
diversification of crops, and had the distinction during the World War of being 
the largest food producer south of the Ohio River. He introduced tile drain- 
age in his section. He is president of the Jonesboro, Lake City & Eastern 
Railroad Company, has an interest in several banks and has built up a number 
of large industries. He owns the entire town of Wilson, with a population of 
nearly 2,000, which is a model in every respect, with churches, schools, a 
civic center, library, community house, and every modern convenience. It is the 
only town in Arkansas that is operated without a municipal government. Mr. 
Wilson also erected there one of the finest school buildings in the state, where 
the higher branches of learning are taught, in addition to occupational courses, 
domestic science, and the usual grammar and high school studies. He is intensely 
interested in young men, and has educated, or assisted in the education of 
nearly a hundred. He is one of the trustees of the State Agricultural School at 
Jonesboro, to which he has contributed considerable time and means. He is active 
in politics, but has never held nor run for an office. He is perhaps the most 
public-spirited, progressive, successful self-made man in eastern Arkansas. 



110 




/?.£ ItiMUisA-^ 



3&, C. I. Mtlson, Jr. 




tt^OBERT EDWARD LEE WILSON, JUNIOR, lumberman 
^9x planter, banker and business man, Wilson, Arkansas, from 

R(£a early youth had no idea of being merely the son of a rich 
fi~y father, for, while his father is very wealthy, the son worked 
^^V as a laborer in his father's big mills during the vacations 
££iA/J while a student at the University of Virginia and Yale. He 
had access to his father's bank account, but he also had in his arteries the blood 
of his father and in that blood there was no corpuscle of idleness. Mr. Wilson 
was born in Bassett, Arkansas, July 7, 1889, the son of Robert Lee and Elizabeth 
(Beall) Wilson. Until he was ten years of age he had a private governess in the 
family home at Wilson. His father then acquired a home in Memphis and 
Mr. Wilson went to the city public schools for two years and to the Memphis 
University School for three years. Following this he went to Woodberry 
Forest School at Orange, Virginia, for three years; spent a year at the University 
of Virginia and then went to Yale where he was graduated in 1912 with the 
degree of bachelor of philosophy. With only a few weeks of vacation, he 
returned to Wilson and on July 1, 1912, began his career as assistant to the 
manager of the real estate department of Lee Wilson & Company. The follow- 
ing year he became the manager of that department, not by favoritism from his 
father, but because he had mastered the details of that then most important 
branch of the business, had shown a vision of the future of the lands of that 
section and had developed a capacity along that line which was of great value 
to the company. At the same time he was elected vice-president of the concern 
and his father gave him a handsome interest in the business. They are the only 
stockholders in the firm of Lee Wilson & Company. In 1916 he was elected 
general manager of the corporation, and as the increasing business of the firm 
in other localities took his father away from Wilson more and more, the son 
had the burden of the business fall more and more heavily upon his shoulders. 
With, the ownership of the entire town of Wilson, one of the biggest hardwood 
sawmills in the country, several tremendous box factories, thousands of acres 
of cotton plantations and more thousands of acres of timber lands, as well as 
many lesser interests, this business probably is the biggest in Arkansas, and as 
general manager Mr. Wilson has been equal to every emergency. Mr. Wilson 
served in the aviation corps during the World War, at Love Field in Texas and 
at Princeton, New Jersey, being a cadet when the armistice was signed. He 
was a member of the Delta Psi Fraternity, and secretary and treasurer of the 
Southern and Mohican societies at Yale ; is a Knight of Pythias, and a member 
of the Tennessee and Memphis Country clubs. He and Miss Natalie Arm- 
strong were married October 24, 1912. R. E. L. Wilson III is their only child. 



115 



e. ©. mtii 




^HARLES OSCAR PFIEL has designed and superintended the 
construction of many of the largest business buildings and 
most beautiful homes in Memphis, but the crowning works of 
his career in Memphis as an architect are his plans for the 
great Auditorium and Market House jointly for the city and 
county on the old Court House site, and the perfection of the 
plan for the Tri-State Fairgrounds, so that as the new buildings are com- 
pleted from year to year the ensemble will be both classic and harmonious, con- 
venient of arrangement and the most beautiful in the country. Mr. Pfiel was 
born April 9, 1871, and is authority for the statement that as a youth he actually 
tilled the soil of Illinois near Jacksonville, the family home. He attended the 
high school and Brown's College in Jacksonville, until 1888, and later took an 
agricultural course in the Kansas State Agricultural College, but agrarian pur- 
suits did not square with his artistic temperament and in 1891-2-3 he attended 
the University of Illinois College of Architecture. He continued his studies 
in that line in offices in Peoria, Illinois ; in Chicago and in St. Louis, 
Missouri, until 1903, when he formed an association with the late G. M. Shaw 
and moved to Memphis. His first important work here was designing the Ten- 
nessee Trust Building, now the Union & Planters Bank Building. He also planned 
and superintended the Chamber of Commerce Building and the present home of 
the William R. Moore Dry Goods Company. When planning the Main Street 
addition to the Hotel Gayoso, he realized the opportunity for the exquisite mural 
decorations which adorn the lobby and finally secured the consent of the owners 
to the idea. He and Prof. Newton A. Wells of the University of Illinois worked 
out the plans here and drafted the rough sketches, which Prof. Wells went to 
Paris to complete, giving to Memphis her only real public works of art. 
Mr. Pfeil also planned and superintended the construction of the P. P. Wil- 
liams, the John R. Pepper and the Walter Lane Smith homes, three of the most 
artistic in the city, as well as a number of other useful public and beautiful 
private structures. His plan for the Auditorium and Market House was adopted 
after a severe competition in which leading architects of the United States were 
the judges and it is a model of beauty in lines, perfection of arrangement for 
the varied uses for which it is to be constructed and economy of operation. 
Mr. Pfeil and Mr. Shaw were associated together until 1912, since which time he 
has been alone in his profession. He is a member of the Memphis Country 
Club, a member of the Tennessee Club, a member of the Chamber of Com- 
merce, a member of the American Institute of Architecture, and a member of 
th Architects' League of Memphis. Mr. Pfeil was married September 15, 
1909, to Miss Myra Russel Hancock, who died February 1, 1915, leaving no 
child. 



116 





o.£pCs 



J. C. OTtlson 




; ULIAN COOPER WILSON, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the 
leading lawyers of the South and formerly chancellor of the 
Third Mississippi district, was born in Hazlehurst, Missis- 
sippi, June 19, 1872, the son of Benjamin Franklin and Susan 
Wilson. He went to the public schools of his native city and 
then read law in the office of the Honorable Robert N. Miller. 
Then he went to the University of Mississippi where he took his literary course 
and in June, 1892, received the degree of bachelor of laws with distinction from 
the law department of the same institution. The Honorable Earl Brewer, later 
governor of the State of Mississippi, was in the same class with him and in 
September of the year that they graduated they formed at Water Valley the 
law firm of Brewer & Wilson which quickly became one of the leading law 
firms of North Mississippi. This partnership endured until 1901, when Judge 
Wilson moved to Oxford, Mississippi, becoming the partner of James Stone 
in the firm of Stone & Wilson. This firm enjoyed a constantly growing practice 
until July 1, 1903, when Judge Wilson withdrew to accept appointment by the 
governor to the chancellorship of the Third District. His administration of that 
office won for him the admiration of the entire bar by his quick, clear and frank 
rulings, while the records of the Supreme Court of the State show that almost 
all of his decisions which were appealed were affirmed. He endeared himself to 
the witnesses before his court by holding that the rule of law which prevents a 
witness from defending himself from slurs by opposing lawyers carries with it 
the obligation of the court to protect him. To the regret of the entire bar 
Judge Wilson resigned as chancellor to resume the active practice of his pro- 
fession in Memphis on January 1, 1907. He practiced alone here for a time, 
then formed a partnership with Mr. Walter P. Armstrong and still later Mr. Elias 
Gates came into the firm, now Wilson, Gates & Armstrong. From the time that 
Judge Wilson went into the office of Judge Miller at Hazlehurst, he has been a 
close student of the law and probably no other lawyer in this section of the 
country is better grounded in its essentials than he is. He is especially valuable 
to a client who has a business point involved, as was shown in the Bank of 
Collierville case where, after a shortage of $38,000, the receivers, as a result 
of litigation won by him, were able to pay the depositors in full and the stock- 
holders the amounts in full of their original investments. One of his most 
important cases was in representing a group of Mississippi Delta planters as 
senior counsel when he secured a ruling from the Supreme Court declaring the 
Tallahatchie Drainage act unconstitutional, Judge John F. Dillon of New York 
being the counsel on the other side. Judge Wilson and Miss Mary Becton of 
Water Valley were married August 27, 1902. 



121 




ft. €. lee 

y^^7 OBERT EDWARD LEE, for forty years a leader in transpor- 
"<S5A tation, commercial, industrial, financial and social circles in 

R(g{ Memphis, Tennessee, was born in this city May 22, 1863, the 
[p) son of James and Rowena (Bayliss) Lee, and educated here 
^_J£v and in St. Louis. He comes from a virile, versatile, talented 
£^9)Jj and successful family, one of the oldest in the United States, 
his branch having moved from Virginia to Maryland, thence at early date to 
Tennessee, where his grand-father, James Lee, Senior, was a pioneer iron mon- 
ger of Stewart County, successful to a high degree and taking up the steam- 
boat business on the Cumberland River as a means of getting his product to the 
markets. This James Lee and his son of the same name came to Memphis at 
an early date and established upon the Mississippi River, under the name of the 
Lee Line Steamers, a system of inland water transportation which, in the third 
generation under Robert E. Lee, became the greatest transportation system on 
the inland waterways of the United States. The younger James Lee for half a 
century was one of the most influential and useful men in the development of 
Memphis. At sixteen years of age Robert E. Lee went into the office of his 
father in a minor capacity with the Lee Line Steamers. At seventeen years of 
age he was the secretary of the company, at twenty-one years general superin- 
tendent, and six years later general manager. That this promotion was not due 
to nepotism was shown by the success of Mr. Robert E. Lee's operation of the 
system. River transportation was in its stage of transition. Its glory largely 
departed with the passing of the Anchor Line. Mr. Lee put the business on a 
solid and sound foundation. No man in Memphis ever put a keener intellect at 
work for more hours per day and under higher pressure than did he. The 
result was that while he took charge of a system operating five boats from 
Memphis to Osceola, Arkansas, and Friar Point, Mississippi, he extended the 
system until its termini were at St. Louis, Cairo, Cincinnati and Vicksburg, the 
service being handled by fourteen palatial steamers, the James Lee II, Robert E. 
Lee, Stacker Lee, Georgia Lee, Bayliss Lee, Rees Lee, Peters Lee, Sadie Lee, 
Ora Lee, Rosa Lee, Rowena Lee, John Lee, Harry Lee and Rob't Lee, Jr., all 
built under Mr. Lee's direction. He was recognized as the authority on con- 
struction and operation of steamers on western waters. In 1905 he retired 
from the river and became president for a year of the Bohlen-Huse Coal & Ice 
Company, later retiring from that and devoting his time to his large private 
affairs. He is a director in the First National Bank and interested in many 
other financial institutions, and is a member of the Tennessee, Memphis Country, 
Menesha and Five-Lakes clubs. Mr. Lee and Miss Elizabeth Morrow were 
married June 16, 1911. They have one son, Robert Edward Lee, Junior. 



122 




(jj&Vi^S^u^ 



M. $. Papier 



IILLIAM BARCLAY BAYLESS, founder and head of the 
firm of W. B. Bayless Company, manufacturers' agents, Mem- 

WJgy phis, Tennessee, is a native of Colbert County, Alabama, where 
\3pj he was born on a plantation October 6, 1869, the son of William 
Wilkins and Rebecca (Thompson) Bayless. He received his 
early education under private tutors in his home and com- 
pleted his school studies in the institutions at Florence, Alabama. When he 
finished his education the United States government was doing work on Col- 
bert Shoals in the Tennessee River near Florence under the personal charge 
of the later General George W. Goethals. Mr. Bayless did his first work there 
in the position of paymaster and receiver of materials. In 1892 he went to 
Louisville, Kentucky, to take a position with Bayless Brothers Company, whole- 
sale dealers in glass and queensware, and in seven years had worked up to the 
vice-presidency of the corporation, in which he also was a holder of consider- 
able stock. In 1903, he sold his interest in that company, resigned his position 
with it, and the following year came to Memphis where he organized the firm 
of W. B. Bayless Company, of which he has been the only president. Later he 
entered the manufacturing business under the firm name of the American 
Woodworkers, Incorporated. He engaged first as agent for manufacturers in 
selling glass to the southern jobbers from Virginia to Arizona, and gradually 
extended his lines and territory until for some years he has been one of the 
largest distributors of glass and wood and cordage products in the country and, 
under the firm name of Bayless Manufacturing Company has developed in its 
own products and in those for which Mr. Bayless' firm is agent, a tremendous 
export business, including Europe, South and Central America, Australia and 
New Zealand. Both in connection with his business and for pleasure, Mr. Bay- 
less has traveled not only over the United States and Canada, but also widely 
in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chili, Bolivia, Peru, Panama, Colombia, Vene- 
zuela, Costa Rica, Cuba, Porto Rico and Santo Domingo. Mr. Bayless has 
extended his business to where it covers a territory wider, probably, than that of 
any other concern in the Mid-South and has prospered financially through it. 
He takes an especial delight in using much of his income and much of his time 
in helping those who are in need. He is one of the most active directors in the 
Associated Charities, the Memphis & Shelby County Tuberculosis Association, 
the Red Cross and the Young Men's Christian Association, to all of which his 
energy, judgment and influence as well as his large contributions are of great 
value. He is also a member of the Memphis Country Club and of the Chamber 
of Commerce. Mr. Bayless and Miss Janet Taylor Bell of Staunton, Virginia, 
were married October 3, 1911. 



127 



. $. JMlanb 




i HE word "banking" and the name "W. P. Holland" are synony- 
mous in the Yazoo Delta of Mississippi, for it has taken him less 
than twenty-five years from its organization to build up in the 
Planters Bank at Clarksdale an institution remarkable in the 
annals of the United States for the rapidity of its growth, 
the scope of its operations and soundness of its methods. 
Walter Powell Holland was born on March 27, 1867, near Springfield, Ten- 
nessee, the son of Dr. T. W. and Mrs. Fannie V. (Powell) Holland. After 
having received grammar and high school education, he was graduated with the 
degree of bachelor of arts from the Mississippi College at Clinton in 1887. Two 
years later he entered business as secretary and treasurer of the Greenwood 
Compress Company, and remained there until 1896, when he foresaw the wonder- 
ful future of the Clarksdale section of Mississippi and moved there, organizing 
the Planters Bank in which he was from the first a stockholder and of which 
he was cashier. From the first the bank grew rapidly. In 1907 he was chosen 
president and from that date to this he has been the active head of an insti- 
tution which has been a marvel until today he is recognized in financial circles 
of the entire country as the equal of any banker. No detail of the bank's 
business is too small for him to give his attention to, and no proposition that 
may arise in connection with the business is too large for him to grasp instantly. 
But even this mass of business has not been able to engross all of his time or 
to afford an outlet for all of his marvelous mental activity. The same judg- 
ment and foresight which he has applied to the affairs of the bank have been 
at work in his private investments and he has amassed a large fortune for him- 
self. Of classic education, he has kept up his reading and broadened himself by 
wide travel and close observation, not only in every state in the Union and in 
Canada, but often in Europe, including England, Ireland, Scotland, France, 
Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Austria, Russia and Switzerland. He is 
an ardent sportsman, being a member of two of the best duck clubs in the 
country, the Delta Duck Club of New Orleans and Mud Lake, Arkansas. He 
is also a charter member of the Clarksdale Elks Club and a member of the 
Memphis Country Club, the Tennessee Club of Memphis and a Master Mason. 
He organized and is president of the following banks in Mississippi : Missis- 
sippi Exchange Bank at Friar Point, Bank of Lula, Peoples Bank of Jonestown, 
Clarksdale Savings Bank, Progressive State Bank of Tutwiler, Bank of Ruleville, 
Bank of Shaw, Bank of Hollandale, Bolivar County Bank of Rosedale, Merchants 
& Planters Bank of Gunnison, Citizens Bank & Trust Co. of Belzoni, and a director 
in the Bank of Drew, the First National Bank of Greenwood, and the Green- 
wood Savings Bank. Mr. Holland and Miss Florence Townes of Minter City, 
Mississippi, were married November 10, 1896. They have no child. 



128 




(/<^A^c^C-. 





I c 



/ \J---^^^^^-^0\ 



S. *. purroto 




]ARON KNOX BURROW, Memphis, Tennessee, who handled 
practically the entire cotton linter output of the United States 
during the World War, and all of it while the United States 
was in the conflict, is a native of Tennessee, although he grew 
up in Texas. He was born, December 14, 1871, near Mace- 
donia, Tennessee, close to the line between Henry and Car- 
roll counties, the son of the Reverend Albert Gibson and Elizabeth (Polk) 
Burrow. His father was a minister in the Presbyterian church and the family 
was originally from Virginia. When Mr. Burrow was eleven years of age the 
family moved to Kaufman County, Texas, where Mr. Burrow attended the 
common schools until he was sixteen. He farmed until he was twenty, but 
that did not agree with his tastes and in 1891 he walked off from the farm and 
took a train for Memphis. His first work here was for Polk, Spinning & 
Company, and for some eight years he worked on the cotton classing floor 
directly under Mr. Spinning. Then he went into the cotton seed products busi- 
ness, specializing in the linter end of it. He put into this business from the 
first an amount of energy, integrity and ability which sent it rapidly to the front, 
so that in a few years he had extended his business over a wide range, and had 
made a reputation as being surpassed by no one in his knowledge of the linter 
business and in his ability to handle it, while in the minds of those who knew 
him there was never any doubt as to his sterling honesty. At the time that most 
of Europe went to war, he had one of the largest linter businesses in the United 
States. The enormous demand for high explosives and gun-cotton came over- 
night and at once the DuPonts became the largest manufacturers of high explo- 
sives in the world with the possible exception of Germany. The DuPont Amer- 
ican Industries, Incorporated, immediately selected Mr. Burrow as its sole 
agent for securing its supply of linters, his territory including the entire United 
States. He not only made the purchases, but also assembled the shipments, 
prepaid them and shipped them, and it was through this source that the French 
secured the major portion of their needs in that line. When the United States 
went into the war, it took over the entire linter output, and through the DuPont 
agency, Mr. Burrow handled all the linters manufactured in the United States, 
shipping directly to the various government factories and to France, which was 
the largest foreign customer. Mr. Burrow is a member of the First Presbyetrian 
Church ; a director in the Y. M. C. A. ; a member of the Memphis Country Club, 
Chamber of Commerce, Merchants Exchange, and Tennessee and Inter-State 
Cotton Seed Crushers associations ; president of A. K. Burrow Company, Inc. ; 
first vice-president of the Johnson-Burrow Building Company, and manager of 
the Memphis branch of the DuPont American Industries, Inc. He and Miss 
Catherine Walter were married January 10, 1912. 



133 



C. $. f. illoonep 




[HARLES PATRICK JOSEPH MOONEY, managing editor 
of The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee, whose influ- 
ence probably exceeds that of any other man in the moral, 
mental and material development of the community, and 
editor in chief of this historical work, was born in Bullitt 
County, Kentucky, September 15, 1865, the youngest of seven 
children of John Francis and Hannah (Spraggins) Mooney. His father was 
a native of County Down, Ireland, while his mother's ancestors, including 
the Ray family, had migrated to what now is Kentucky from North Carolina 
about the time of the revolution. The elder Mr. Mooney was one of the 
leading men of the county, cultivating some 1400 acres of land which 
Mrs. Mooney had inherited from her father and which had been in the family 
directly from a government entry. He died when C. P. J. Mooney was only 
seven years of age, and at thirteen the lad went to work as a telegrapher in the 
Bardstown Junction office. Three years later he went to Saint Mary's College, 
near Lebanon, one of the oldest educational institutions in Kentucky, and 
remained there until 1886 when he received his degree of A. B., having special- 
ized in mathematics under Professor Timmons. Then followed two more years 
in the school room with Mr. Mooney as principal and teacher of mathematics, 
Greek and Latin in the high school at Uptons in Hardin County, at $40 per 
month. But board then and there was only $8 per month. During that time 
also he read law under his guardian, but being without means to pursue the law, 
he, in 1888, followed a brother to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, intending to become a 
telegrapher for the Cotton Belt Railroad. However, at Pine Bluff he found an 
opening with Arthur Murray on the Press-Eagle, where he did his first news- 
paper work as reporter, writing editorials, soliciting advertisements and collect- 
ing the rents for Mr. Murray's large property interests. It was on June 17, 1890, 
that Mr. Mooney came to Memphis as a reporter on the old Avalanche under 
A. B. Pickett. Shortly thereafter the Avalanche and Appeal were consolidated, 
and after four days with the Appeal-Avalanche, he went with Mr. Pickett on the 
Scimitar, soon becoming city editor. In 1896 he became managing editor of 
The Commercial Appeal, but in 1902 resigned to occupy the same position with 
Frank A. Munsey's New York Daily News. After three months there he joined 
the Hearst forces and in 1904 wrote his editorials for the morning editions in 
the Parker presidential campaign. He had charge of the Chicago Examiner 
from 1905 to 1908, and then returned to The Commercial Appeal. He was an 
original Wilson delegate to the 1912 Democratic convention, vice-chairman of the 
West Tennessee draft board, and is a director on Mr. McAdoo's own motion 
of the Federal Reserve Bank for the Eighth District since 1917. Mr. Mooney 
and Miss Corinne G'Sell O'Connor of Pine Bluff, formerly of Carondolet, Mis- 
souri, were married June 6, 1891. Their children are Hugh J., Miriam (now 
Mrs. Robert E. Galloway), and Charles, junior. E. M. H. 



134 



». 3- »iB») 




^AMUEL JAMES HIGH, financier, Tupelo, Mississippi, has 
not only achieved great success for himself in early manhood 
as a banker, but it is doubtful if there be in the Mid-South 
any man who has been more efficient than he for the develop- 
ment of his home city, his county and his section of the state 
in all that makes for good, and the material progress of 
Tupelo and Lee County during the past fifteen years has been such that any 
community might take justifiable pride in it. Yet Mr. High is just as demo- 
cratic in manner and unassuming in bearing as if he had merely drifted along 
with the general mass of humanity. He was born in Lee County, near Tupelo, 
October 3, 1872, and after having taken the courses in the public schools of 
Tupelo, he went through Eastman's Business College at Poughkeepsie, New 
York. In 1896 he entered the Bank of Tupelo as bookkeeper and within a few 
years was promoted to assistant cashier. However, in 1904, he resigned that 
position and was one of the organizers of the Peoples Bank & Trust Company, 
which, mainly under his direction, has become probably the strongest financial 
institution in any city of its size in the Mid-South. The bank opened with 
Mr. High as cashier. In 1918 he became the active vice-president and in 1920 
the president. Its resources now are over $4,000,000. He is also president of 
the Tupelo Fertilizer Factory ; vice-president of the Tupelo Oil & Ice Company ; 
director in the Tupelo Cotton Mills and the Tupelo Compress Company ; presi- 
dent of the Tupelo Hotel Company ; director in the Tupelo Theater Company ; 
president of the Tupelo Insurance Agency ; director in the Cotton States Life 
Insurance Company, Bank of Guntown, Iuka Guaranty Bank, Bank of Saltillo, 
Bank of Sherman, Bank of Shannon, Verona Bank and Winfield (Alabama) 
State Bank, in addition to owning stock in eight or ten other banks in his sec- 
tion. During the World War, he was district director for the Liberty loan 
organizations, member of the executive committee for Lee County ; county 
food administrator for a year, chairman of the Y. M. C. A. campaign, chairman 
of the war work relief campaign and local treasurer for the Red Cross. He is a 
director in the Mississippi Welfare League, Conference Centenary treasurer for 
the Methodist Church, and served as president of the Mississippi Bankers Asso- 
ciation from May, 1915, to May, 1916. He has been one of the most active 
workers for all of the campaigns in Lee County which have given it her drain- 
age systems, her magnificent hard roads, and her diversification of crops so that 
she exports feedstuff and has her cotton for a surplus crop. He is a devout 
member of the Methodist Church, and has traveled widely throughout the United 
States, Canada and Mexico. Mr. High was married October 21, 1897, to Miss 
Annie Belle Allen, daughter of the late lamented and universally beloved John 
M. Allen. They have one son, James Allen High, bora in 1910. 



139 





€. i. gnberscm 

|EW men have been larger factors in the development, first of 
Coahoma County, Mississippi, and later the surrounding coun- 

F(gK ties, in planting, building, banking and business generally than 
fi|y Mr. Edgar L. Anderson of Dickerson. Mr. Anderson was 
born July 15, 1868, in Copiah County, Mississippi, the son of 
W. P. and Mrs. L. G. Anderson. When only eight years of 
the family moved to Coahoma County, where soon Mr. Anderson, Sr., and 
C. W. King acquired a large tract of the finest Delta land. Mr. Edgar 
L Anderson, at the age of twenty-one years, entered the firm of King & Ander- 
son, which now is composed of Mr. King, Mr. Anderson and his mother. The 
King & Anderson plantation at Dickerson became famous as one of the most 
productive and best managed in the Delta, and a pioneer in all progressive agri- 
culture suitable for that section. No "pent-up Utica" for Mr. Anderson, and 
soon he expanded to entering established business firms in Clarksdale and 
organizing new ones. The firm became large landholders in and adjoining 
Clarksdale. In the early nineties, they built the first Alcazar Hotel — fine for its 
day and generation — and seven years ago, when it had become outgrown by the 
demand, they constructed the new one by the same name. Aside from his vast 
planting affairs, Mr. Anderson is interested in the Clarksdale Theater ; presi- 
dent of the Planters Manufacturing Company ; vice-president of the Planters 
Bank, the record of whose growth is one of the most phenomenal in the history 
of banking in the United States ; director in the Clarksdale Savings Bank ; vice- 
president of the Exchange Bank at Friar Point ; vice-president of the Peoples 
Bank at Jonestown ; director in the Bank of Ruleville ; director in the Bolivar 
County Bank at Rosedale ; director in the First National Bank in Greenwood, 
an institution of rare solidity; director in the Bank of Shaw; vice-president of 
the Bank of Hollandale; director in the Progressive State Bank in Tutwiler; 
director in the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company of Clarksdale, a most success- 
ful pioneer in its line ; director in the Johnson-Harlow Lumber Company of 
Clarksdale ; director in the Mississippi Valley Dry Goods Company of Clarks- 
dale ; and a director in the Wm. R. Moore Dry Goods Company of Memphis, in 
which he had business sense enough to invest during its forced reorganization. 
Mr. Anderson has never held any elective office, but both Governor Longino and 
Governor Brewer prevailed upon him to represent his county as commissioner 
for the Upper Yazoo Levee District, where the judgment, honesty and integ- 
rity which have characterized his career were of great benefit to the entire 
district. He has always taken an active interest in every movement pertaining 
to good roads, and built the first gravel road in Coahoma County. Mr. Ander- 
son and Mrs. Mamie Brown Colbert were married June 25, 1902. Their family 
consists of two sons, Edgar Lee, Jr., and William King Anderson. 



140 




^Z^JiT^^p 



ft. p. gnberaon 




iENECA B. ANDERSON was one of the first northern lum- 
bermen to appreciate the wealth in the southern timber and 
to have the capacity to take advantage of it. Born in Genesee 
County, New York, in 1849, the son of David and Lovisa 
(Throop) Anderson, he was educated in the public schools 
of Coldwater, Michigan, and attended Kalamazoo College in 
1871. Three years later he was in the lumber and manufacturing business for 
himself in Van Buren City, Michigan, and in 1886 he associated himself with 
C. Colby & Company in Benton Harbor, and in 1887 with N. B. Hall & Com- 
pany of Benton Harbor and Greenfield, Tennessee. Having changed the name 
of the firm to Anderson-Tully Company and incorporated it in 1889, the com- 
pany moved to Memphis. Since that time he has been one of the most important 
factors in the manufacturing business and social development of Memphis. At 
that time the value of southern timber was nominal and the overflowed lands 
upon which it grew were considered practically worthless, often reverting to 
the State for taxes. He realized their prospective value and his company locat- 
ing mills on Wolf River, bought large timber tracts along the Mississippi River, 
thus availing itself of the cheapest transportation. Mills for the manufacture 
of lumber into boxes, crates, etc., were erected and the business grew with 
rapidity, being one of the most systematic and best managed in the country. 
Later Mr. Anderson has extended his lumbering operations, his company being 
one of the largest hardwood concerns in the South, and of recent years he has 
made investments in Delta plantations, especially down in the sections where the 
land had depreciated from the first attacks of the boll weevils, but now has 
come back into its own. Mr. Anderson was married in 1876 to Miss Adelaide 
Bennett of Pennsylvania, a woman of rare education, attainments and culture. 
They have traveled widely, not only over the United States, but Europe as well. 
Their beautiful home in Morningside Park, and former residence on Poplar 
Avenue, for many years have been the gathering places of the most literary 
Memphians, as well as for many delightful social affairs. Col. Harry B. Ander- 
son, one of the first to enlist and to go from this section to France upon the 
declaration of war, is their only son, but his four delightful children are the joy 
of both elder generations of the family. The elder Mr. Anderson served for a 
time as mayor of Benton Harbor, Michigan, but resigned the office in the middle 
of his term to move to Memphis. Mr. Anderson is chairman of the Municipal 
Terminal Commission. The commission is erecting modern river terminals 
through the operation of which it is hoped Memphis will be able to profit by 
the transportation advantages offered by the Mississippi River. Mr. Anderson 
is a Shriner, member of the Chamber of Commerce and for four years has 
been a member of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce of the 
United States. 



145 



W. &. J&abnt? 



"The upper Yazoo Basin has been made entirely safe against all floods except 
possibly the extremest. In the event of the latter, vigorous emergency work will, 
in all likelihood, prevent crevasse of the system or overflow of the basin." 




I HIS excerpt from the annual report of the chief of engineers, 
United States Army for 1919, Part III, Page 3674, is a 
wonderful tribute to the capacity, skill and integrity of 
Thomas Gregory Dabney, Clarksdale, Mississippi, engineer since 
its organization in 1884 of the Board of Commissioners of the 
Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. Major Dabney, as he is universally 
known, comes from that sterling French Huguenot family, d'Aubigne, his great- 
great-great grandfather having gone to England upon the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes and come to Virginia very early in the Seventeenth Century. 
The Dabney estate and mansion at Dabney's Ferry were in keeping with the 
highest traditions of the Old Dominion. Major Dabney's grandfather, Ben- 
jamin Dabney, probably was the most distinguished lawyer in Virginia during 
his day. Major Dabney was born in Raymond, Mississippi, December 12, 1844, 
the son of Augustine Lee and Elizabeth (Smith) Dabney, his father having come 
to Mississippi in 1835 and served for eight years as probate judge of Hinds 
County. The lad was educated by private tutors at Burleigh, the family name 
of his uncle's plantation and began life as a youth as assistant to the county 
surveyor. His chief went into the Confederate Army soon thereafter, leaving 
him in charge of the office, but he closed it and enlisted with the Raymond 
Fencible. Left as dead after the battle of the Wilderness, he recovered, was 
transferred to the artillery, became a sergeant, was the most expert gunner in 
his command, the equal to any Confederate in devotion and courage, fought at 
Port Hudson and Ship Island, and walked back to Raymond from Mobile after 
the surrender. He completed his course in mathematics at Raymond and 
worked variously on the Louisiana levees, the Gulf & Ship Island and Vicksburg, 
Shreveport & Pacific railroads. Moving to Vicksburg, he was active in sup- 
pressing the riots of 1874. When he became engineer for the upper Yazoo 
levee board, he found little more than a memory of a small levee. Between 
October 10, 1884, and February 28, 1885, he placed two million yards of earth 
with wheelbarrows on a line one hundred miles long. Now there are forty 
million yards of earth in that line. With the specification about twenty per cent 
larger than that of the government, the ideal levee will be attained in 1921. 
Major Dabney has spent nearly fifteen million dollars on this line without the 
slightest breath of suspicion as to any contract. 



146 




tfSrf, 



TL. €. Proton 




|EWIS EDWIN BROWN, Memphis, Tennessee, whose firm, 
George C. Brown & Company, handles three-fourths of the 
red cedar lumber consumed in the United States and which 
also is one of the largest hardwood manufacturing concerns 
in the country, is a native of New York State, although he 
was reared and has spent all of his active life in Tennessee. 
He was born October 31, 1873, at Medina, Orleans County, New York, the 
son of George C. and Celia E. (Jackson) Brown. When he was a lad of 
twelve years, the family moved to Tennessee where they located in 1885 in 
Warren County, near McMinnville, where the elder Mr. Brown engaged in a 
small way in the manufacture and sale of red cedar lumber. The younger 
Mr. Brown attended the public schools of Warren County for a time, worked 
during vacations at his father's mill, clerked in the postoffke, learned telegraphy, 
worked for the Western Union Telegraph Company and for the Nashville, Chat- 
tanooga & Saint Louis Railway in McMinnville, until he became of age, when 
he, his father and two other gentlemen formed the firm of George C. Brown 
& Company to enlarge the father's cedar business and also do a general whole- 
sale hardwood lumber business in McMinnville. A few years later the head- 
quarters of the firm was moved to Nashville, and in 1907 a branch yard and 
office were opened in Memphis. In 1898, on account of the failure of the 
health of Mr. George C. Brown and the fact that the other partners were not 
actively engaged in the business, Mr. L. E. Brown became the active manager 
of the business, and since it was incorporated in 1910, at which time headquar- 
ters were removed to Memphis, he has been the president, the original partner- 
ship having been continued unbroken until that date. Mr. G. C. Brown died 
in 1911 in Nashville and his widow, together with her only other child, Mrs. 
Frank A. Williams, lives in the old home there. About ten years ago, Mr. Brown 
became interested in the manufacture of hardwoods in Arkansas, and erected at 
Proctor, Arkansas, what is considered one of the best saw mills in the country. 
Mr. Brown bought for it tremendous tracts of virgin timber surpassed in 
quality and yield per acre by none in the country. Most mill men in those days 
valued lands only for their timber, but Mr. Brown had vision enough to realize 
a tremendous farm value in addition and from the first his company has cleared 
its land as fast as the timber was removed or sold it to those who would do so. 
It has disposed of some ten thousand acres in that way and still owns as much in 
Crittenden and St. Francis counties. He is also vice-president of the Harwell 
Lumber Company of Cosgrove, Arkansas. Mr. Brown and Miss Belle Harwell 
were married in McMinnville, December 23, 1896. Three children have blessed 
the union: Lewis Edwin, Junior, who was born September 6, 1901, and died 
July 27, 1905 ; George C. and Richard Harwell Brown. 



151 



f. M. Canaba 




JOHN WALTER CANADA, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the 
leading attorneys of the South, was born on a farm near 
Whitehaven, Tennessee, December 27, 1876, the son of Wil- 
liam Wilks and Sallie Thomas (Brewster) Canada. The 
father died when he was only twenty-six years of age and the 
widowed mother moved to Memphis, where she reared and 
educated her children. Colonel Canada, by which title he is usually known from 
his service as an officer in the Spanish-American war and later as commanding 
officer of a regiment of state militia, grew up in Memphis and went to the public 
schools here. Then he attended the Memphis Military Institute where the prin- 
cipal tutors were Professors Wharton S. Jones, Nicholas M. Williams and J. L. 
Sewell, intimate association with whom in itself was a liberal education. From 
there he went to Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi, where he received his 
degree of master of arts in 1897. During the same time, he was taking his law- 
course at the same institution under Judge Edward Mayes, for many years 
recognized as one of the great jurists and teachers of law in the United States. 
With his literary and law diplomas in his pocket, he returned to Memphis, but 
had to wait until he became of legal age before he could be licensed to practice 
his profession. He was admitted to the Memphis bar on the first of January, 

1898, but it was only a few months later when the United States and Spain 
went to war over the Cuban situation. Colonel Canada had been a cadet-cap- 
tain at the Memphis Military Institute. He promptly enlisted and Governor 
Robert L. Taylor commissioned him first lieutenant in Company L. Fourth 
Tennessee Infantry, United States Volunteers. He was soon promoted to cap- 
tain of the company and served with the army in Cuba, most of his time being 
spent at Sanctu Espiritus and at Tunas de Zaza, on the south coast of the 
island. He was mustered out of the service at Savannah, Georgia, in March, 

1899, and returning at once to Memphis, resumed the practice of his profes- 
sion. He retained his love for the military and served as lieutenant colonel and 
then colonel of the Second Regiment, National Guard, State of Tennessee. 
Colonel Canada confined his law work purely to civil practice and rose rapidly 
in his standing at the bar. For the past fifteen years he has been in the bulk of 
the big cases in the local courts. He is vice-president and general counsel of 
the Union Railway Company and general counsel for the Memphis Union 
Station Company. He is solicitor for the Frisco System in Tennessee and Mis- 
sissippi ; general attorney for the Missouri Pacific system in Tennessee ; district 
attorney for the St. Louis-Southwestern Railroad, and general counsel for 
the Arkansas & Memphis Railroad & Bridge Company. Colonel Canada and 
Miss Emma Berry of Franklin, Tennessee, were married December 31, 1903. 
They have one child, J. W., Jr. 



152 




£V-,V. W>vvOuCA/L . 




^^.77} a>ujfcZL4. 



TO, $. Jttattfjeto* 




ILLIAM HENRY MATTHEWS, Memphis, Tennessee, one of 
leading manufacturers of the South, is a Canadian by birth, 
having been born in Flesherton, Ontario, July 30, 1873, the 
son of the Reverend H. S. and Sarah (Carter) Matthews. 
He was graduated from the high school at seventeen years of 
age and from a business college at twenty. Then he went 
into the insurance business where he remained three years and this was followed 
by five years spent in a private bank. In 1901 he organized the First State 
Bank in Boyne City, Michigan, and the following year entered upon the line 
in which he has made such a success in Memphis, at the same time being the 
leading factor in developing a useful industry which makes wealth from what 
formerly was a waste product. It was in 1902 that he was one of the organizers 
of the Boyne City Chemical Company, and the following year he took over the 
active management of the concern. A year later he organized and became vice- 
president and manager of the East Jordan Chemical Company. He managed 
these two plants with signal success until July, 1910, when he was elected vice- 
president and general manager of the Lake Superior Iron & Chemical Com- 
pany, with headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. In that capacity he rebuilt the 
plants of the company and managed them until 1914, when he bought in north- 
east Memphis the plant of the Forest Products Chemical Company, selecting 
Memphis as the best location for such an operation because of the large amount 
of refuse product from the many saw mills here and the untold amount of hard- 
wood annually wasted in the rapid clearing of the land close to the city. Except 
for what was burned as firewood, all of this up to that time was not only a 
waste, but an item of expense both to the mill men and the owners of the land 
in getting rid of it. In Mr. Matthews' plant there is not a speck of waste from 
a stick of this wood, even the smoke being condensed and converted into most 
useful products. The more valuable outputs of the plant are wood alcohol, 
calcium acetate, charcoal, creosote, pitch and shingle stain. Many of these 
products were essential to the manufacture of munitions of war and when his 
adopted country cast her weight into the scales in the World War, Mr. Mat- 
thews volunteered his services. Being recognized as the leader in the United 
States in that line of manufacture, as well as a man of sterling honesty, perfect 
integrity and 100 per cent efficiency, the government availed itself of his ability 
at the nominal salary of $1 per annum. Since 1908, he built for the government 
the chemical plant at Collinwood, Tennessee, and the chemical plant at Shelby, 
Alabama. Since the war, he has become the head of both of these concerns, each 
larger than the one in Memphis. Mr. Matthews has traveled widely on this 
continent and abroad. He and Miss Clara Pasmore were married June 24, 1901. 



157 



3. OT. Jfox 




| ESSE WILLIAM FOX, active manager of the largest cotton 
plantation in the world, director of the largest establishment 
in the world for the breeding of better cotton seed, and final 
authority on cultivation and soil maintenance and improve- 
ment, passed from the director of experiment stations to the 
management of the immense cotton plantation at Scott, Mis- 
sissippi, and from the day he took charge has shown the same capacity for 
directing the army of men under him that he did in the scientific work. Mr. Fox 
was born in Webster County, Mississippi, August 11, 1867, the son of Hallie 
and Angeline Fox. He was educated at the Agricultural & Mechanical College 
of Mississippi, University of Virginia, University of Chicago and Harvard 
University. He taught school in Slate Springs one year, was principal of the 
public schools at West Point for a year, and was acting professor of mathematics 
at the State Agricultural & Mechanical College for a year. He taught agricul- 
tural engineering at the Agricultural & Mechanical College for a time, and then 
had charge of the farm department of that institution for two years. At the 
end of that time he was sent to Stoneville in Washingon County in charge of 
the Delta experiment station there. His cotton and fertilizer work, and general 
grasp of the Delta farming situation at that station attracted the favorable atten- 
tion of the cotton interests, not only of the Delta, but of the entire South, and 
in 1910 he accepted an invitation from the World's Cotton Conference held 
at Brussels, Belgium, to address that body on the future prospects of cotton pro- 
duction in the South. His statements to this conference were prophetic and 
should be read by every cotton producer in the South. Perhaps Mr. Fox's best 
work has been with cotton. Realizing that cotton is by far the most important 
crop in the South, he has bent his energies to further this great industry in 
every way possible. He established the first department of scientific cotton 
breeding in the South at the Mississippi Experiment Station in 1910, and placed 
E. C. Ewing, a trained plant breeder, in charge. He was the first to question 
the recommendations which were being made for the wide spacing of cotton 
for boll weevil control. A series of spacing tests were started at the Mississippi 
Experiment Station in 1910. These experiments, with others since made, have 
revolutionized the question of cotton spacing. In 1906 Mr. Fox began a series 
of experiments to determine the relative production of different lengths of 
cotton. This work has been of a great value to the cotton producers. When 
the big plantation, the Delta & Pine Land Company of Mississippi, was organized 
at Scott, Mississippi, Mr. Fox was put in charge. The organization and suc- 
cessful operation of this big plantation has attracted the attention of the entire 
cotton producing world. Mr. Fox and Miss Lucy Gay were married December 
17, 1897. They have three children, Misses Francis and Virginia, and J. W. 
Fox, Junior. 



158 




e ***** 




ft. iH. Mitktp 




AMUEL MOSSMAN NICKEY, Memphis, Tennessee, one of 
leading hardwood lumber manufacturers of the United States, 
was born in Allen County, Indiana, September 9, 1868, the 
son of Addison Boyd and Orpha L. Nickey. He was grad- 
uated from the Methodist College in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and 
at the age of nineteen years went into the lumber manufac- 
turing business with his father, who was one of the pioneers in that line in the 
wonderful hardwood forests of Indiana which, according to the general opinion 
of lumbermen, contained the finest white oak in the United States. The father 
and son were associated in business together first in Auburn, Indiana, for 
ten years and at the end of that period they resumed the same business on the 
son's twenty-ninth birthday at Princeton, Indiana, under the name of A. B. 
Nickey & Son. They operated there successfully for another period of ten 
years, and then Mr. A. B. Nickey, Mr. S. M. Nickey, and another son, Mr. W. E. 
Nickey, came to Memphis, organized the Green River Lumber Company and 
erected on the Illinois Central Railroad and Plum Street, what was at that time 
probably the best equipped saw mill in the city. From the beginning of the 
operation of the mill, the company was ever in the market for the best logs 
that were to be had, and the product of the mill was unsurpassed by any in the 
country. In fact the senior Mr. Nickey had been a pioneer in the manufacture 
of quarter-sawed oak, and also in the establishments of the present grades of 
that timber by which the finer qualities brought commensurate prices. Later 
they established the firm of Nickey Brothers, Incorporated, and erected at the 
intersection of Summer Avenue and the eastern belt line, the most complete 
veneer plant in the Mid-South. Mr. S. M. Nickey is president of the company 
which owns the veneer plant and Mr. \V. E. Nickey is the vice-president, their 
positions being reversed in the Green River Lumber Company. Lumbermen 
agree that there are not two better managed or more successful plants of their 
kind in this section of the country. Some years ago the Messrs. Nickey bought 
a magnificent tract of timber land in Arkansas near where the Marianna branch 
of the Iron Mountain Railroad crosses Fifteen Mile Bayou, which has yielded 
splendid timber for their Memphis mills and which has wonderful agricultural 
value when reduced to a state of cultivation. Mr. Nickey's standing among his 
fellows in Memphis is shown by the fact that he has served as president of the 
Southern Hardwood Traffic Association for a most successful term. He is also 
a member of the Memphis Lumberman's Club, the National Hardwood Lum- 
ber Association, the Memphis Chamber of Commerce, the Masons and the 
Second Presbyterian Church. Mr. Nickey and Miss Lois Metsher were married 
in August, 1910. They have three children: Eleanor M., Lois M. and Samuel 
M., Junior. 



163 



®HL *. fterrtn 




jHERE is no better proof of what foresight, energy and ambition 
can accomplish in the fertile Delta lands to the south of Mem- 
phis, than the career of William Kennedy Herrin, of Clarks- 
dale, Mississippi. A native Mississippian, he was assistant 
manager at the age of twenty years, for Mr. C. L. Robinson 
on the magnificent land where the town of Robinsonville now 
stands. Within three years he was the general manager of all of his large inter- 
ests there. At the end of eight years he and his brother, C. H. Herrin, rented 
the entire plantation from Mr. Robinson, and operated it in connection with a 
big mercantile business until 1906, when he operated his own planting business 
at Robinsonville. Then he moved to Clarksdale and formed the Clark-Herrin 
Company. As president of the company, he managed this large planting business 
with signal success for eight years, meanwhile organizing the clothing firm of 
Powers & Company. Since 1910 he has been vice-president of the Planters 
Manufacturing Company, operating the big oil mill. In 1912 he was elected 
one of the city commissioners and appointed police commissioner over the 
mayor. Clarksdale now thanks him for the splendid and successful fight which 
he won over strong opposition for taking it out of the mud, and devising the 
system by which it now has become one of the best paved cities in the country. 
The Clark-Herrin Company was liquidated in 1915, and Mr. Herrin, with his 
brother, C. H., and his son, W. K., Jr., bought the Dorr place, adjoining the 
city limits at the then fabulous price of $125.00 per acre. Now some of that 
land is selling for $3,000.00 per acre, and he has established on the remainder 
of the place a model farm for the breeding of the fanciest Duroc -Jersey hogs, 
his foundation herd having as good blood lines as there is in the land. In 1917 
he organized the Herrin Bros. Cotton Company, one of the biggest cotton 
factors in the Delta. In the same year he organized the Imperial Garage, 
owned by himself, his brother and his son; and built the Herrin & Landry 
Building on Sunflower Avenue, which is occupied exclusively by the cotton firm 
and garage. He is also a director in the Planters Bank. Under his chairman- 
ship the Red Cross filled every quota for Coahoma County, and ended the war 
with $18,000.00 on hand, now being used for community nurses. Mr. Herrin 
is the son of Mr. J. C. and Mrs. Clara Kennedy Herrin, and was educated in 
Yazoo County where he was born May 12, 1867. He married Miss Sallie West, 
November 6, 1891, their children being William Kennedy, Jr., Mrs. George P. 
Bowmar and Miss Evelyn Waters Herrin. He is a past exalted ruler of the 
Elks and president of the Rotary Club. An ardent sportsman, his home is 
filled with trophies of the chase, quantities of cups won at fox hound field 
trials and bench shows, and his pack of Walkers now probably is the best in the 
United States. 



164 





iJLyiyz~*>^ 



5o£epf) Jgeal proton 




JOSEPH NEAL BROWN, Olive Branch, Mississippi, banker, 
merchant, planter and one of the leading factors in the mate- 
rial and moral progress of the Mid-South, bereft of his father 
at two years of age, of his older brother during the Civil War 
and of his mother just at the close of that struggle, when he 
\5&Ec^g^Si£a was but sixteen years of age, has carved out for himself a 
commanding position in his own community, at the same time being 
one of its most useful members. He was born in Marshall County, Mississippi, 
October 2, 1849, the son of George Washington and Ellen (Huffman) Brown. 
The family had moved to Mississippi from Perry County, Tennessee, being of 
pioneer stock in the Volunteer State. His grandfather was Lieutenant Joseph 
Brown of Captain McMahan's company, Tennessee Militia, in the War of 1812 
and declined the grant of land voted to all veterans of that war on the ground 
that he wanted no reward for military service to his country. Mr. Brown's 
father was the principal of a private school, and the lad was educated in the 
private schools of his community, the Civil War interfering with his taking 
a college course. Upon the death of his mother in 1865, he wound up the 
affairs of the plantation and began his mercantile career as a clerk in 1868 in a 
country store in his neighborhood. Two years later he bought on credit a half 
interest in the business and within two years had paid for that and then bought 
the other half. He conducted the business with signal success for ten years and 
then, in 1882, sold it and moved to the railroad town of Olive Branch in 
De Soto County and established a mercantile and cotton buying business, which 
is still conducted there by Mr. Brown and his son-in-law, Mr. T. H. Norvell. 
Mr. Brown's delightful personality, sterling integrity, absolute honesty and 
business acumen made him successful from the start in his mercantile ventures 
and during the fifty years that he has been in active business he has never 
asked an extension of a credit. In 1917 he organized the Bank of Olive Branch 
with a capital stock of $15,000. He owns one-third of the capital of the bank 
and has been its only president. Now the bank has a surplus of $10,000 and 
deposits aggregating $200,000. He is a stockholder in the Union & Planters 
Bank & Trust Company and is a director in the Stewart-Gwynne Company of 
Memphis. Since the reorganization of the Baptist Memorial Hospital he has 
been a most useful trustee, and is senior deacon in the Baptist Church of Olive 
Branch. Without having solicited a vote he was elected a member of the 
Mississippi Senate, where he has been most active in legislation for the State 
Tuberculosis Hospital at Magee, for good roads and better schools. Mr. Brown 
has been married twice; first, January 3, 1877, to Miss Pattie Brooks, who died 
leaving one child, Miss Pearl Rivers, now Mrs. Norvell ; and later to Miss Willie 
M. Wilson on February 16, 1906. 



169 



«. 3F. Pobman 




iggjyg J. BODMAN, Little Rock, Arkansas, banker and leader in 
~^PJ movements for better farming throughout his state, is a native 

Ef§n of Warsaw, Indiana, where he was born December 25, 1874, 
\3pj the son of Samuel L. and Elizabeth C. Bodman. At the age 
^_j<cj) of sixteen years, after having taken a course in the grammar 
j^Sj/tJs schools at home, he came to Memphis, Tennessee, and after 
a few years here, moved to Little Rock. In 1900 he entered the employ of 
the Union & Mercantile Trust Company of that city as a clerk. Now he is the 
active vice-president and secretary of that institution and he has been one of 
the main factors in the development of the concern to a point where it is one 
of the strongest financial institutions in the Mid-South, and also one of the 
most useful. Mr. Bodman, as a banker, was not content with merely receiving 
deposits and discounting paper. He long ago realized that with practically of 
the South's agricultural activity devoted to one crop — cotton — this great 
section of the country was treading, economically, on thin ice and when the 
break came with the declaration of the World War in 1914, and the entire 
South lay financially prostrate, he leaped to the front as the active and efficient 
propagandist of the one idea that could make the South independent for all 
time and under all conditions — that is for the South to raise all its own food 
for man and for beast and then what cotton it can, letting the cotton be the 
surplus and money crop. In September, 1914, he organized the Arkansas 
Profitable Farming Bureau and became its chairman. He made a campaign 
throughout the State the like of which had never been seen. There was no 
antagonism on his part to cotton per se, but a campaign for less acreage until 
the surplus of that year disappeared, meanwhile making each farm as nearly 
self-supporting as possible and while this was being done the land would be 
rejuvenated so that the future crops of cotton would be raised with less instead 
of constantly increasing cost per bale due to wearing out the lands. Mobile, 
Memphis, Birmingham and Texas cities asked for help along the same lines 
and Mr. Bodman went to them and aided in forming similar organizations 
there. In 1915 and 1916, he was a leading figure in the formation of the 
Arkansas Livestock Association, and at the 1915 and 1917 sessions of the 
Arkansas Legislature he was active for appropriations for district agricultural 
schools and for Texas fever cattle tick eradication. He also organized the 
annual profitable farming trip on which farmers of the State visit model farms 
of other sections at an expense of some $18,000 to the Little Rock Business 
men, bringing back new ideas which they disseminate. Mr. Bodman and Miss 
Mary Wood Wright were married October 4, 1904. They have two children, 
Samuel W., born in 1910, and Anne C, born in 1912. 



170 



&. Jf . Carr 




^^TOBERT FLETCHER CARR, president of the Union Motor 
^^/A Car Company, Memphis, Tennessee, is a native of Alabama, 

R((jR having been born June 29, 1876, in Butler County. He is the 
\PJ son of Samuel H. and Emma E. (Stuckey) Carr. He received 
^^J&v his early education in the public schools of Montgomery, 
£^3] Alabama, and, at the early age of nineteen years, he entered 
the employ of the Southern Railway at Birmingham, Alabama, starting as a 
brakeman and rapidly earning promotions to freight conductor, then passenger 
conductor and trainmaster. He remained with the Southern Railway in the 
last named position until 1909, when he left the Southern Railway to join the 
St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad forces, where he remained 
that year and the next in the capacity of trainmaster. In 1910 he went with 
the Frisco System of railroads, first in the capacity of transportation inspector. 
His rise there was rapid. In two years he was promoted to superintendent, first 
having jurisdiction of the Red River division, having his headquarters at 
Francis, Oklahoma; then being transferred to the gulf coast lines with his head- 
quarters in Kingsville, Texas, and last to the Southern division, with his 
head first in Birmingham, where he had begun his successful career only a few 
years previously. Later his headquarters were transferred to Memphis. His 
success as an operating official was so marked that in 1917 he was promoted to 
assistant general manager of the entire Frisco System, with his headquarters in 
Springfield, Missouri. In addition to having become one of the most efficient 
railroad men in the Memphis territory, Mr. Carr had had time to look out for 
his own private affairs, and had made considerable investments in Mississippi 
Delta lands in the vicinity of Drew. These had been opened up for cultivation 
and had become of sufficient importance to require the major portion of his 
time, and afford a handsome income without the terrific strain of the high 
railroad position which he held. In August, 1918, he resigned his connection 
with the Frisco System and returned to Memphis, making his home in Missis- 
sippi for a time while devoting his energy to his plantations. He had traveled 
all over the United States, having covered at least a million miles, before decid- 
ing that Memphis, as the center of the Mid-South, was the best place in which 
to live and be in business. He was one of the organizers of the Union Motor 
Car Company and has always been one of its stockholders. Recently he bought 
large additional blocks of stock in that company and is now its president. The 
firm is one of the largest and its home on Monroe Avenue and Third Street 
is one of the most elaborately staged motor car businesses in the South. Mr. Carr 
and Miss Ida Bell Luster were married in February, 1899. They have six 
children — Earl H., Robert H., Frances K., Margaret, Ernest and Ida Bell. 



175 



B. ft. Crump 




jABNEY HULL CRUMP, cotton buyer, planter and breeder 
of fancy live stock, like so many other successful Memphians, 
is a native of Mississippi. He was born in Holly Springs, 
April 3, 1873, the son of James Moore and Caroline Hatch 
(Smith) Crump. He attended school in Holly Springs for a 
few years and, having moved to Memphis, went to the Market 
Street public school until he completed the seventh grade. At the age of fifteen 
years, he quit school and went out into the business world on his own hook. 
His first job was as errand boy in a cotton shed. At sixteen he was a clerk 
in the salt warehouse of Myles & Company. After three years there, he became 
a clerk in the merchandise brokerage firm of Hugh Pettit & Company, but after 
less than one year there he got into the line of work which suited him and in 
which he has made such a signal success. It was in 1892 that he went into the 
office as a clerk for the cotton-buying firm of John Sherwood & Company. 
In six years there and four with Robert Wool fender & Company, he mastered 
the details of the cotton-buying business, and in 1902 he became the junior 
member of the firm of F. M. Crump & Company, which soon became and still 
is one of the most substantial, reliable and successful cotton-buying and shipping 
firms in the Mid-South. Mr. Crump has ever been not only a liberal man, 
but possesses a real desire to be of service to the section in which he lives, and 
knows how to do this. In his Silleba Farm, near Capleville, twelve miles east 
of the city, where he and Mrs. Crump have a summer home, he has not only 
made a success in breeding registered Holstein cattle and Duroc-Jersey hogs, 
but was the originator in this section of the community fair idea. For years 
he held a fair at his own expense with prizes, especially for boys and girls, for 
all of the possible produce of the farm. Later the community joined him in 
making the Silleba Fair a permanent institution and still later other sections 
of the county took up the idea. The effect of his idea is instantly apparent 
in any community where the fair has been given for even a few years, in the 
improvement in the preparation of the seed bed, the selection of better seed, 
more thorough cultivation and higher type stock, cattle, hogs and fowls, and 
hence a more prosperous community. Ten years ago he and some associates 
bought a big plantation at Transylvania, Louisiana, and they have demonstrated 
that cotton can be raised successfully in boll weevil territory by proper and 
frequent cultivation and diversification. There has not been a year since then 
that the plantation has not had corn, oats and hay to sell after having fed all 
hands and stock on the place. Mr. Crump is a member of the Tennessee, Mem- 
phis Country and Rotary clubs and the Chamber of Commerce. He and Miss 
Mary Metcalf were married April 10, 1907. Their children are Dabney H., Jr., 
and Charles Metcalf Crump. 



176 



Jf . 4WL Crump 




^^IRANK MILLINGTON CRUMP, leading cotton buyer and 
^^A exporter, Memphis, Tennessee, was born near Holly Springs, 

F(K\ Mississippi, July 15, 1868, the son of James Moore and 
@v Caroline Hatch (Smith) Crump. He received his education in 
^j£X the public schools and in Chalmers Institute in Holly Springs, 
^^1 and at the age of sixteen years came to Memphis and began 
work at the bottom of the ladder, the rungs of which he has climbed by sheer 
merit until he has reached the top. He began work as a clerk in 1884 in a cotton 
shed, later becoming bill clerk and shipping clerk for the wholesale grocery and 
cotton firms of Stewart, Gwynne & Company and Hill, Fontaine & Company, 
two of the most substantial and honorable firms ever in Memphis. From 1890 
to 1892, he was a cotton re-weigher. His firm promoted him to cotton classer 
and buyer in 1892, and he remained in this line of work until 1896, by which 
time he had become recognized as one of the best posted cotton men in the city. 
Then, with his brother, Dabney H. Crump, he organized the firm of F. M. 
Crump & Company, cotton buyers, of which he still is the senior partner, and 
which for a number of years has stood as one of the most reliable and pro- 
gressive firms in that line in the entire cotton belt. He is a member of the 
New York Cotton Exchange and of the Memphis Cotton Exchange, which 
honored him in 1906 by electing him president of that body. His standing as 
one of the best informed men in the cotton line and as a man of the highest 
personal and professional character was recognized nationally in 1909 by his 
appointment as a member of the committee constituted by an act of Congress 
to establish the original United States standard of grades and classifications of 
cotton, considered by cotton men as the greatest step in recent years for the 
stabilizing of the cotton market. The Memphis market long suffered from the 
lack of adequate storage and compress facilities and the annual loss to this 
section of the country from damage to cotton lying for months in the rain on 
the public streets was tremendous, until Mr. Crump and some associates con- 
ceived and executed the idea of the Memphis Terminal Corporation, which has 
done so much for the local cotton market. In fact Mr. Crump for many years 
has been one of the most active men in the city for every movement for the 
up-building of this section of the country. He is an active member of the 
Chamber of Commerce and of the Memphis Country Club, and also fond of the 
fishing and shooting afforded on the preserve of the Menesha Outing Club in 
Arkansas. Mr. Crump and Miss Sara Stuart Macrae, daughter of Major and 
Mrs. G. W. Macrae, were married, November 17, 1908. They have three 
children, Frank M., Jr., and Blanche and Sara, the last two of whom are twins. 
Mr. Crump has traveled widely on this continent and makes annual European 
trips for both business and pleasure. 



181 



Jlenrp Craft 




jENRY CRAFT, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the leading attor- 
neys of the Mid-South, prominent in club and social circles, 
living the life of a country gentlemen at "Hillacres" in Shelby 
County and operating a large cotton plantation in Crittenden 
County, Arkansas, was born in Memphis at what now is 
No. 872 Poplar Avenue, February 5, 1866, the son of Judge 
Henry and Ella (Boddie) Craft. His father for many years prior to his death 
in 1894 was one of the conspicuous figures of this section, both professionally 
and socially. His mother was of the Middle-Tennessee branch of the old 
Boddie family, her father, Elijah Boddie, having been the wealthiest and most 
influential man in Sumner County, Tennessee, during his day. Mr. Craft 
received his literary education at the Southwestern Presbyterian University in 
Clarksville, Tennessee, where he was graduated in 1884. Returning to Memphis, 
he went to work for McDavitt, James & Company, wholesale grocers and cotton 
factors. During the three years that he worked for that concern, he read law 
under the direction of his father at night. He was admitted to the bar on 
February 5, 1887, and the year following became the junior member of the firm 
of Craft & Craft. His experience in the commercial world naturally led him 
to specialize in that branch of law. He enjoyed a lucrative practice from the 
beginning, as clients were quick to recognize his grasp of the law and to appre- 
ciate his painstaking care of every interest intrusted to him. Since the death 
of his father he has formed no other partnership. His clientele has grown 
steadily until now it is one of the best and most lucrative in the Mid-South, 
purely civil and largely confined to his office. Mr. Craft has never sought 
public office, nor taken any part in politics beyond the duty of every good 
citizen but in 1911 he was appointed for special service as a justice of the 
Supreme Court of Tennessee. One of the most conspicuous cases decided by 
him in that capacity was the reversal of the first degree murder verdicts against 
eight men in the Reelfoot Lake nightrider cases. He served for a year each 
as president of the Tennessee Club and of the Colonial Country Club, the latter 
of which is located near his country home "Hillacres," where he. Mrs. Craft, 
and their younger children lead a delightful life and which he is rapidly develop- 
ing not only into a beautiful country residence but also to a high state of 
productivity. He also owns four thousand acres of land at Proctor, Arkansas, 
some of which came into the family thirty years ago at $2.50 per acre and some 
of which he recently bought in a wild state at $75 per acre. He and Miss Emma 
Galloway, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Charles B. Galloway, were married 
July 21, 1891. Their children are: Miss Charlotte O., now Mrs. John D. War- 
field ; Miss Margaret, now Mrs. H. Curtis Dewey ; Henry, Jr., and Miss Ellen 
Douglass. 



182 





&A 




TO. J. Briber 




jHE Honorable William Joshua Driver, Osceola, Arkansas, 
representative in the National Congress from the First District 
of Arkansas, has, since the days of his youth, been one of the 
strongest factors for the material and moral development of 
his section of the State. He was born in Osceola, March 2, 
1873, the son of John B. and Margaret (Bowen) Driver. His 
father had moved to the Saint Francis Basin of Arkansas from Georgia, 
where from the time that he arrived in the new country he had been one of the 
most prominent figures in every movement for the progress of the community. 
The son was educated in Osceola, finishing the high school there in 1891. Then 
he read law in the office of Judge George W. Thomason in his native town and 
on May 1, 1894, was admitted to the bar of Mississippi County. His first con- 
spicuous service for the community was in connection with the early days of 
the Saint Francis levee system. The district had recently been organized and 
was without means. He rode on horseback from one end of Mississippi County 
to the other and secured without charge to the levee board the right of way for 
the line through that county. Three years after his admission to the bar the 
Democrats of his county sent him to Little Rock as a member of the legislature, 
where he served for two terms as a valuable member of that body. Here he 
secured the donation of the State lands within the levee district to the district, 
and the first bond issue authorized for levee building. He is also the author of 
the act creating the Chancery Court of his district. In 1911 he was elected 
judge of the Second Judicial circuit of Arkansas, where he made a reputation 
of which any man might well be proud. During his incumbency as judge of 
that circuit, his territory was experiencing its most rapid transition, much of it 
from a wilderness to a state of high cultivation. Timbermen were everywhere 
and they were closely followed by men clearing and cultivating the land. Many 
good men thought that they could not get or keep labor without permitting the 
operation of "honk-a-tonks," where both colors and sexes drank, gambled and 
danced together and where the gamut of crime was run nightly. Judge Driver 
stopped these and labor was equally as plentiful and far more efficient. He was 
a terror to the Mississippi River liquor boats and to the whisky pirates on the 
islands. His administration of the civil law was equally as efficient and useful 
to the community. He was a member of the State Constitutional Convention of 
1918. In 1920 he ran for Congressman in the First Arkansas District as a 
Democrat endorsing fully the Wilson administration, and, although opposed by 
a number of strong men from various counties in the district, carried every one 
of the eleven counties. He is a Knight Templar, Scottish Rite Shriner and Elk. 
Judge Driver and Miss Clara Haynes were married June 2, 1897. They have 
one son, William J., Junior. 



187 



JTacob <§olbsimtt!) 




)ACOB GOLDSMITH, head of the em. ' • -merit store 

which bears his name, which is second to none between 
St. Louis and New Orleans ; which in integrity is second to 
none in the land ; which has six hundred employes, a dozen of 
whom have been with the company continuously for from a 
third to nearly half a century, and which last year bought the 
palatial structure which it occupies on Main Street and Gayoso Avenue, spent 
his first six months in Memphis working for his board, and then earned his 
first American money working at $10 per month and his . „ep." Born in 
Baden, Germany, February 3, 1850, the son of Frederick and Sophia Goldsmith, 
and having attended the schools there, he was but seventeen years of age when 
his mother's brother, Louis Ottenheimer, then a merchant in Memphis, visited 
the old home. He liked the looks of the lad, and accounts of Memphis induced 
the then young Jacob to return with him. He landed in Memphis in 1867 and 
went to work for the firm of Ottenheimer & Schwartz on Beale Street. His 
friends laughingly say that it was a Jacob-Laban bargain, as he married his 
employer's daughter. Miss Dora Ottenheimer, July 22, 1875. Their children 
are: Miss Sophie, Mrs. Fanny Ottenheimer of Baltimore, Frederick, Elias J., 
Leo, Mrs. Aline Newman, and Mrs. Sadie G. H^rzberg, and he has twelve 
grand-children, one of whom is married. After three years jf clerkship, 
Mr. Goldsmith and his brother, Isaac, organized the firm of I. Goldsmith & Bros., 
with $500 capital, but it had a real merchant behind this small amount of money. 
It moved into the Magevney Block on Main Street in 1881. Notwithstanding 
the death of his brother in 1885, Mr. Goldsmith, although having bought his 
interest in the business, continued the same firm name until 1904, when with 
his three sons he incorporated the present firm of J. Goldsmith & Sons Company. 
Four years previously the business had expanded to the point where the present 
building was erected for it and in 1919 the company bought it. The apprecia- 
tion of the public for the high class of goods and the courteous treatment that 
it receives at Goldsmith's is reflected in the constantly growing volume of busi- 
ness. The only semi-public office that Mr. Goldsmith ever sought was when 
he was elected a vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce. He is a member 
of the City and Rex clubs, the B'nai B'rith, an Odd Fellow for forty years, 
a charter member of Progress Lodge, K. of P., organized in 1886, and the 
Congregation Children of Israel, where he holds the second office — warden. 
He is a director in the Manhattan Savings Bank & Trust Company, the First 
National Bank, Wm. R. Moore Dry Goods Company, Memphis Hotel Company, 
and the Gibraltar Coal Company. He was a heavy purchaser of all the Liberty 
Loans, and donor to the new Jewish Temple and the proposed Jewish Hospital, 
as he has been to all charitable movements in Memphis for many years. 



188 




f^SkmJ^X^ 






m $. i>allibap 




iILLIAM PARKER HALLIDAY, financier, Memphis, Ten- 
nessee, was born in Cairo, Illinois, August 6, 1865, the son of 
William P. and Eliza W. Halliday. He was graduated in 1883 
from the Pennsylvania Military Academy at Chester, Pennsyl- 
vania, and returning home in the fall of that year went to 
work in November as a collector for the City National Bank. 
Following this he became secretary to the firm of Halliday Brothers, which was 
for years one of the leading firms of Cairo. Then he was in the employ for a 
time of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad under Mr. Marvin Hughitt, the 
president of the company. He and Mr. Hughitt were chatting one Sunday in 
December, 1888, and Mr. Hughitt stated that if he were a young man he would 
go either to Birmingham, Alabama, or to Memphis, Tennessee, where they 
dug millions of dollars each month out of the earth, referring to the iron mines 
of the Alabama city and to the cotton of the Memphis territory. That the 
suggestion made an impression on the mind of Mr. Halliday is shown by the fact 
that on January 3, 1889, he landed in Memphis, where for many years he has 
been one of the leading figures in the financial, industrial and social life of the 
community. He engaged in the banking business here during the first few years, 
and in 1892, he, the late Robertson G. Morrow and a few others, organized 
the Memphis Furniture Manufacturing Company, of which Mr. Morrow was 
president until the time of his death and Mr. Halliday vice-president. They 
developed this to where the Memphis and its allied concerns compose the largest 
furniture manufacturing business in the world. In the meanwhile the old 
Gayoso Hotel burned, leaving the Peabody Hotel, then but a fraction of its 
present size, as the only first-class hostelry in the city. The Hallidays long had 
owned a hotel in Cairo and Mr. Halliday, together with Stuyvesant Fish, the 
late Jerome Hill and the late L. P. Parker, manager of the Halliday Hotel in 
Cairo, organized the Memphis Hotel Company, of which Mr. Halliday is first 
vice-president, bought the old Gayoso site and erected the present building. 
Later the Hotel Chisca was erected, the Peabody Hotel remodeled, and Mr. Halli- 
day and his associates organized the Chickasaw Hotel Company, in which the 
former hotel rivals of the city joined forces in the operation of the Gayoso, 
Peabody and Chisca. Mr. Halliday also recently bought the Fransioli Hotel. 
He also made heavy and profitable investments in Delta cotton lands. He is a 
member of the leading social clubs and business organizations, and his recreation 
is on the duck marshes of Arkansas, where he is one of the best shots. Mr. Halli- 
day was married November 10, 1892, to Miss Anne Pillow Ridley of Columbia, 
Tennessee, a descendant of two of the oldest and most distinguished families in 
the state. Their children are William P. II, William P. Ill, and Anne Pillow. 



193 



€. JJL dlrosfoenor 




|HARLES NILES GROSVENOR, for many years one of the 
most active factors in the material development of Memphis, 
Tennessee, and, during his nearly seventy years of residence 
here, one of the city's most partiotic citizens, ever a true 
friend and a most delightful companion, is a native of Mem- 
phis, having been born here November 23, 1852. He is the 
son of Henry Merrill and Martha (Niles) Grosvenor, his father having been 
in his day the leading merchant in the furniture business of the city. His mother 
was the daughter of Charles Niles, for whom the son was named. Mr. Gros- 
venor grew up in Memphis during the Civil War and the unsettled state of 
affairs which followed in its wake. His father died in 1869, and he was able to 
secure only the educational advantages offered by the schools of the city. How- 
ever, the culture and refinements of his early home-life were followed by wide 
reading on his part and such associations as have resulted in his being a man of 
unusually broad information and delightful personality. When but a lad, 
Mr. Grosvenor became associated with the late Col. John Overton, Jr., who 
had just returned from service in the Confederacy under General Forrest and 
gone into the real estate business in Memphis, mainly looking after the large 
estate of his father, whose father was the prime mover in the laying out of 
the City of Memphis. In 1880, Colonel Overton and Mr. Grosvenor formed 
the partnership of Overton & Grosvenor, which for many years was the leading 
firm of real estate dealers in Memphis, and one of the most active factors in 
the rapid development of Memphis in the years which followed that time. 
Mr. Grosvenor's attention to his business was so intense that in 1897 he suffered 
a breakdown which necessitated his retiring from the firm and going West to 
recuperate. He spent two years in Texas and Arizona, putting the same deter- 
mination in the quest for health that he had in his business and during that 
time camped, living in a tent and did not spend a night sleeping in a house. At 
the end of two years he was completely restored and returned to Memphis, 
where he resumed the real estate business, but almost entirely in looking after 
his own properties. During the more active days of his career, he was a director 
in the Union & Planters Bank and in the company which built out Madison 
Avenue the dummy line which later became the first electric line in the city\ 
He was also active in establishing the dummy line which became the Suburban 
street car line and one of the principal owners of the Chickasaw Land Company, 
which owned three thousand acres of land in South Memphis. Mr. Grosvenor 
was married December 30, 1885, to Miss Olivia Polk Hill, daughter of Mr. and 
Mrs. Napoleon Hill. They have three children: Napoleon Hill, Charles N., Jr., 
and Miss Olivia, now Mrs. Marion G. Evans. 



194 




fj.//*j6Wt> 



&. J3L iUcMtlliamg 




| HEN one starts to think of the builders of the Upper Delta 
section of the Mid-South, the mind naturally turns to Robert 
Nesbith McWilliams, of Farrell and Clarksdale, Mississippi. 
He went to Coahoma County twenty-six years ago with a total 
of $6.50 in cash and now owns one hundred and twenty-five 
acres of $200-land for each dollar that he took there, with an 
equal amount of other property. Born in Montgomery County, Mississipi, June 8, 
1863, the son of Hugh Ferguson and Mary J. McWilliams, he went to the county 
common and high schools and later took a short college course in north-western 
Texas. Returning to Mississippi in 1894, he managed for planters for three 
years, finally rising to the salary of $50 per month. But it was in 1897 that he 
commenced his real constructive work when he took a partnership with two 
Georgians in the land where the magnificent Humber plantation now is. It was 
then a wilderness of blue cane and timber. He literally went into the woods 
and with that Napoleonic industry and capacity for organization and manage- 
ment which have characterized his entire career, opened the land for the plow 
and maintained the same high steam pressure in its cultivation. He established 
the first rural postal route in Coahoma County and the first telephone on a rural 
route. He soon bought his associates out of their share of the Humber planta- 
tion and added the Burk plantation to it until now he owns and cultivates 8,000 
acres of the finest land that a crow ever flew over. His home there is as modern 
as any in a city, with its electric lights and artesian water. He recently refused 
$750,000 for the Humber place alone. But even Mr. McWilliams' iron consti- 
tution and steel nerves could not withstand the strain that he was putting upon 
them and he was compelled to spend the summer of 1914 on Mackinac Island, 
Michigan, to recover from a nervous breakdown. Returning he soon built the 
McWilliams Building and organized the Delta Bank & Trust Company, with an 
initial capital and surplus of $110,000. Now it has $250,000 and two millions 
in deposits, while the building is valued at $450,000. The next year he built 
the adjoining theater and department store. In the last three years he has 
bought $800,000 worth of property. Now he is building a million dollar hotel, 
to be eight stories high, with accommodations for eight hundred guests, bath and 
ice water in each room, up to the minute in every respect, with a bungalow on 
the roof for himself and his family. These are but a few of his many outside 
enterprises. Mr. McWilliams is a Methodist. He was married December 28, 
1887, to Miss Kate Cartledge. They have five living children: R. N. Jr., G. L., 
Miss Bessie, Miss Kathleen, who is now Mrs. Harry S. Moore, and Miss Marion, 
in honor of whom her father named his theater. 



199 



J. Jf . J*lcg>toepn 




ft&AMES FERGUSON McSWEYN, Memphis, Tennessee, one of 
fifel the best posted lumber manufacturers in the United States, was 

JkTO born in Glengarry County, Ontario, January 15, 1855, the son 
Sufe of Malcolm and Christine (Ferguson) McSweyn, both from 
Scotland. He attended the public schools until he was eleven 
years of age, and then being thrown on his own resources, went 
to work in a general store in a small lumber town at the salary of $3.50 per 
week. He remained there for three years and then when a lad of but fourteen 
years of age he went into the great white pine forests of the Far North, assisting 
in the manufacture of that beautiful timber. When that winter's snows melted 
and the streams went out of their banks the following spring, Mr. McSweyn 
took part for the first time in the driving of timber down the rivers. It was the 
most thrilling life imaginable and held that strange fascination which constant 
playing face to face with death ever holds for the full-blooded young man, but 
in speaking now to his friends of his river experiences, Mr. McSweyn adds, 
"I do not suppose that I would care much for it now." During the time that 
Air. McSweyn followed the life of the woodsman, he served as axman for a 
party which was surveying the line for a railroad in 1874 through sixty-five miles 
of green pine timber in which there was no sign of any ax having preceded that 
wielded by Mr. McSweyn. Within ten years from the time of the survey, every 
merchantable tree had disappeared from that forest. When Mr. McSweyn was 
eighteen years of age he moved to Saginaw, Michigan, then in its prime as a 
white pine manufacturing center. He continued for some time in the occupa- 
tion of woodsman, river driver and saw mill hand and foreman of lumber camp? 
and drives always in the white pine line until 1893, when he entered the hard- 
wood business in Grand Rapids, in which line he has continued to the present 
time. In 1879 Mr. McSweyn and Mrs. Laura E. Gibbons were married. She 
died in 1888, leaving two children, George and Miss Jessie, now Mrs. D. C. 
Shattuck, both residing in Memphis. Mr. McSweyn and Miss Iva Baldwin were 
married in 1900. They have three children, James M., Katherine and Ruth. 
He is also the proud ancester of five grand-children. Mr. McSweyn came to 
Memphis in 1906 when he and Mr. George McSweyn became financially inter- 
ested in the formation of the Memphis Saw Mill Company. This company was 
reorganized in 1913, with the father as president and the son as vice-president 
and the name changed to the Memphis Band Mill Company. There is no phase 
of the lumber business, from the stump to the consumer, in which Mr. McSweyn 
has not had experience. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, 
Colonial, Country and Lumbermen's clubs, president of the latter in 1917, 
American and National Hardwood Lumber associations, Southern Hardwood 
Traffic Association and Southern Alluvial Land Association. 



200 




ch*- * 



Chn. ^ 



/dt^-l^y^J 



& a. Withers 




TERLING ADOLPHUS WITHERS, planter, merchant, man- 
ufacturer and political leader, Tunica, Mississippi, is a member 
of one of the oldest, most cultured and most active families 
in the northern position of the State. He was born in Her- 
nando, De Soto County, November 13, 1877, the son of John 
Paxton and Ada Byron (Thompson) Withers. After having 
received a common school education at home, he went through Nelson's Business 
College in Memphis and at the age of twenty years moved to the Delta portion 
of his native county where he began life for himself as a merchant at Lake 
Cormorant and planting one hundred acres of land near there. The start was 
not a large one, but he put into it an immense amount of industry and the high 
degree of efficiency which has characterized his entire career. He prospered 
in Lake Cormorant to the point where, in 1900, he moved to Tunica County, and 
leased some six hundred acres of land at O. K., a landing on the Mississippi 
River. There he had an opportunity for his splendid qualities to show and his 
development was rapid. The following year he rented three hundred acres more, 
and he farmed both tracts to the top limit. The next year he bought twelve hun- 
dred acres, part of which was in cultivation and the remainder of which he 
began clearing rapidly. Now he and his father own some three thousand acres, 
about half of which is in cultivation. Mr. Withers is president of the Planters 
Oil Mill in Tunica, a $125,000 concern and is also a director in the Citizens Bank 
of Tunica, as he has been since its organization in 1916. He represented Tunica, 
Coahoma and Quitman counties in the State Senate during the Brewer adminis- 
tration and was the guest of the governor in the executive mansion during the 
sessions of the legislature. He served his county for four years as a member 
of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta (Upper) Levee Board, and has served the entire 
district in every period of high water for the past twenty years in personally 
patrolling the levee in his neighborhood, taking a sector so long that no one but 
a man of his wonderful physique could cover it twice daily on horseback and one 
of his rare executive capacity could handle. He was chairman for the Red Cross 
during the war in his county and now is chairman of the county executive com- 
mittee. He was vice-president and secretary of the Council of Defense during 
the war and is chairman of the American Protective League, with enough courage 
for any action that might have been necessary under the one and may be required 
in the other line. He is also secretary and treasurer of the Tunica Business 
Men's Club. He is an Elk, a Mason, member of the Tunica Gun Club, the Moon 
Lake Country Club, and was a member of the old Chickasaw Guards Club of 
Memphis. His favorite recreation is riding to the hounds and he is always at 
the kill of either deer or fox. 



205 



2Br. J. C. Pvooks 




[OSIAH CLINTON BROOKS, physician, planter, merchant 
and capitalist, Deeson, Mississippi, is a pioneer of that section 
of Bolivar County and one of the most successful business men 
in the Delta. He is a native of Alabama, having been born in 
Huntsville, January 4, 1855. He attended Vanderbilt Univer- 
sity at Nashville, where he completed his medical course and 
studied literature in Sumit, Alabama, receiving his diploma as doctor of medi- 
cine in 1880. When twenty-five years of age, he went at once to the Mississippi 
Delta and settled at Concordia, in the northern part of Bolivar County. He 
took post-graduate courses at the Tennessee University and at Bellevue in New 
York. There was little settlement then in that section of the country except on 
the high bank of the river and the banks of some of the alluvial bayous. He 
spent nine years at Concordia practicing his profession with signal success. At 
the end of that time the Riverside district of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley 
Railroad was being constructed and he moved from the river front back to 
Deeson on the railroad right-of-way. At that time there was one residence 
where the city of Deeson now stands, owned by Sydney Deeson, for whom the 
place is named. The only other evidence of civilization consisted of a number 
of negro shacks. But the virgin timber was ripe for the ax, and the fertile land 
eager for the plow, and the early settlers, like himself, were virile men. About 
the time that the United States and Spain disagreed, Dr. Brooks bought his first 
Delta land, eighty acres, for two hundred and forty dollars. Dr. Brooks would 
not sell this original eighty acres now for any price. His friends differ on 
whether he considers it a nest egg or the goose that has laid so many golden 
eggs, but he simply says that he will keep it because it was his first cotton land 
in the Delta. However, neighboring lands inferior to this for which he paid 
three dollars per acre, now sell easily for more than twice as much per acre as 
he paid for the entire eighty acres. His first bale of cotton was sold in Mem- 
phis on the day that Dewey broke the proud Castilian heart by his victory in 
Manila bay, and he adopted the name "Dewey" as the trademark for his cotton. 
His holdings now aggregate seven thousand acres, including the Parks Planta- 
tion and Brooksland, where he lives and conducts his mercantile business. He 
is a stockholder in the Newburger Cotton Company of Memphis, Tennessee, 
Planters Bank, Delta Grocery & Cotton Company, Delta Bank & Trust Com- 
pany and the Peoples Compress Company of Clarksdale, Mississippi, and has 
stock in several other small banks through the Delta. He and Miss Annie Wal- 
worth, daughter of Major Walworth, and niece of General Martin of Natchez, 
Mississippi, married April 24, 1889. Their children are Douglas W. Brooks, 
Margaret Barnard, now Mrs. W. T. Wynn of Greenville, Mississippi, and 
Annie Clinton, now Mrs. John W. Palmer of Memphis, Tennessee. 



206 




lipffl^x 




&. ft. Jf ant 

[ICE TURNER FANT, lawyer, planter and capitalist, Memphis, 
Tennessee, like so many other prominent men of Memphis, 

R(£T\ was born and reared in Mississippi. His father, James W. 
\SU Fant, was one of the colony of gentlemen who settled in 
Marshall County, Mississippi, at an early date and developed 
there an ante-bellum civilization in which any country might 
well take pride. He was a large planter and slave-holder, and gave four sons 
to the Confederacy, two of whom never returned. Mr. Fant's mother was Eliza 
M. Fant. Mr. Fant was born near Holly Springs, June 28, 1860. After having 
attended the public and private schools at home, he went to the University of 
Mississippi at Oxford, and, after having completed his course there, he studied 
law and was admitted to the bar at Holly Springs in October, 1881, at the age 
of twenty-one, as a partner of an older brother, the late Judge James T. Fant. 
From the start the firm was a success, and during the time that it existed it 
ranked at the head of the law firms of Northern Mississippi, both for the ability 
of the members in their profession and for their high character and absolute 
integrity. From the beginning of his career, Mr. Fant had a bent for business 
law and later for business and finance itself. During the time that he was in 
Holly Springs, he was president of the Bank of Holly Springs, one of the oldest 
and most substantial financial concerns in the State of Mississippi. He also took 
a lively interest in the public affairs of his State, never holding any political 
office, but always vigorous and effective for what was best in principle and per- 
sonality in every campaign. He served his State as delegate to the Democratic 
National Convention in 1892. Seeking a broader field for his activities, Mr. Fant 
moved to Memphis in 1897, continuing the practice of law and immediately 
taking a high position at the bar, as well as in the better social and political life 
of the community. Gradually he began devoting more and more of his time 
and attention to business and finance and less to the practice of his profession. 
Some years ago he became connected with the syndicate which, with large Eng- 
lish backing, bought lands about Scott, Mississippi, and, as the Mississippi Delta 
Planting Company, became the largest planters of cotton in the world, as well 
as doing a great deal of experimental work, the benefit of which is given freely 
to the world. Now Mr. Fant has retired almost entirely from the practice of 
his profession, and devotes his time to his planting, mercantile and financial 
interests. He and Miss Elizabeth Lewis Hull, who is a grand-daughter of the 
late Justice A. M. Clayton of the Mississippi Supreme Court and one of the 
distinguished jurists of the State, were married March 4, 1886. Their chil- 
dren are Mrs. W. H. Fortune and Arthur C. Fant, an attorney. Mr. Fant is a 
member of the Memphis Country Club and Chamber of Commerce. 



211 



0. Jf. Plebsioe 




I SCAR FITZALAN BLEDSOE, Grenada, Mississippi, one of 
the oldest planters in the Mississippi Delta, is a native of 
Columbus, Mississippi, where he was born April 8, 1840, the 
son of Oscar Fitzalan and Mary (Hardwick) Bledsoe. His 
family had migrated from Virginia to North Carolina in 
Colonial days, where Colonel Anthony Bledsoe in command 
of Western North Carolina cavalry did valiant service to the Revolution. 
Thence they went with Robertson to Tennessee in the Indian days, fought to 
maintain the Nashville settlement and had a county in the Volunteer State 
named for them. His father had served in the Tennessee State Legislature and 
in the Seminole War under Andrew Jackson, and at an early date moved to 
Mississippi where he practiced law and became a considerable planter and slave- 
holder in the Tombigbee River country, now Lowndes County. However, four- 
cent cotton depleted his estate to the point where in 1849 he mounted a mule and 
rode west almost the entire width of the State settling at what is now Shellmound 
on the right bank of the Yazoo River in the upper part of LeFlore County. 
There he acquired some eight hundred acres of land for twenty-five to fifty 
cents per acre and it is said that the cost of the log cabin that he had built on 
the place was in excess of the entire cost of the land. The place still remains 
in the family and the land is worth some $200.00 per acre. The father died 
in 1854 leaving as an estate for the son only the Shellmound Plantation, but 
little of which then was in cultivation. Mr. Bledsoe struggled manfully and 
with ultimate success to acquire an education in letters and in law from the 
meager income from the plantation. He attended the public schools in Columbus 
and the old Franklin Academy and then went to the University of Mississippi 
where he was graduated with first honors in 1860 and was taking his law course 
when the Civil War began. He served the Confederacy with signal bravery 
for four years, tried to practice law in Memphis but found times so hard that 
he had to sell his watch to pay his board, taught school at McNutt, Mississippi, 
finally finished his law course at Oxford, practiced there and at Columbus, moved 
to Grenada in 1870 where he lived until 1892, managing his Shellmound Plan- 
tation from there, and then moved to the plantation, where he remained until 
1900 in active charge of the property and developing it greatly. Then he turned 
it over to his son, Oscar Fitzalan, Junior, and returned to Grenada, where he 
still makes his home, hale and hearty in the full enjoyment of his eighty useful 
years and managing personally the thousand acres of land which he owns in 
the lowlands adjacent to Yalobusha River. He was married first November 
22, 1866, and later June 17, 1869, to Miss Sallie Vinson Cannon. They had 
three children, Oscar Fitzalan Bledsoe, Junior, alone surviving. 



212 




(pAf^r- J?, (j&£-iL,<zl4~*^. 



#. Jf. Plebsoe, Jr. 




SCAR FITZALAN BLEDSOE, JUNIOR, planter, Shell- 
mound, Mississippi, is the present active representative of one 
of the oldest and most vigorous families in the State, living on 
land which his grandfather opened with his slaves in 1849. He 
was born in Grenada, Mississippi, September 7, 1878, the son 
of Oscar Fitzalan and Sallie Vinson (Cannon) Bledsoe. He 
was educated at the Agricultural & Mechanical College at Starkville, Missis- 
sippi, taking a special course there in engineering and pursuing that course fur- 
ther at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. At the age of twenty 
years, he went to Shellmound where his father owned a plantation which the 
father's father had first cleared and began planting and merchandising. He 
acquired at the start some twenty-three hundred acres from his father, about 
half of which was in cultivation. Mr. Bledsoe put such a high degree of energy 
and efficiency into the work that now he has more than doubled the size of the 
original plantation and he has fully three-fourths of it in cultivation. In addi- 
tion to his large land holdings, Mr. Bledsoe is a director and stockholder in a 
number of the larger and most successful manufacturing and wholesale firms 
in LeFlore County. He is a member of the House of Representatives of the 
State of Mississippi from LeFlore County for the term of four years following 
1920. When the World War came on, Mr. Bledsoe was not of the right age to 
be accepted for service in the field, but he upheld the traditions of his family 
by putting his time and his fortune in the scales at home. He was sales director 
for every one of the campaigns in his county for the Liberty and Victory loans, 
Red Cross drives and offerings of War Savings Stamps, and he carried each of 
these far over the top. His family dates back in America to 1704, when George 
Bledsoe died in Northumberland County, Virginia. Four generations back of 
him the sturdy members of the family came with Robertson and Donelson down 
the Cumberland River and a monument near Gallatin, Tennessee, bears witness 
to this day to their prowess as Indian fighters, the inscriptions on it being: 
"July 20, 1788, Colonel Anthony Bledsoe killed this date at Bledsoe's Lick" and 
"April 9, 1793, Colonel Isaac Bledsoe killed this date at Bledsoe's Fort." Both 
of these men were of the famous Long Hunters and it is for the members of 
this family that the county of Bledsoe in Tennessee is named. Mr. Bledsoe is 
a member of the Methodist Church and while at Vanderbilt was a member of 
Beta Pi Chapter of the Greek Letter Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. He and 
Miss Lulu Aldridge of Mississippi were married March 17, 1903. They have 
three children, Lulu Bledsoe ; O. F. Bledsoe IV, and Katherine Vinson Bledsoe, 
who have the distinction of having the paintings of two of their great-grand- 
fathers, Senators Jesse Speight and James Z. George, in the Hall of Fame at 
Jackson, Mississippi. 



217 





(Eltag #atesi 

EW, if any, members of the Tennessee bar have had their 
ability so generally recognized in so short a time after having 

F(t5v been admitted to practice as has Elias Gates, and it was solely 
f^y his ability to interpret the law and apply it to the facts in each 
case that won him that recognition and brought the magnificent 
practice which he has enjoyed for many years. But he 
brought with him to the bar a splendid educational equipment in an erudite 
mind, a sincere ambition to go to the bottom of each case as well as to the top of 
his profession, and an enormous capacity for work. Born on August 19, 1873, 
at Des Arc, Arkansas, the son of Ferdinand and Sallie Mayer Gates, he attended 
the public schools of his native town. From 1884 to 1890, he was a pupil in the 
public schools of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was a member of the ninety- 
sixth class in Philadelphia's Central High School. He then went to the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, where he received his degree of bachelor of philosophy in 
1894. Three years later he had earned the degree of bachelor of laws from 
Harvard Law School, and at once moved to Memphis, where, in 1897, he began 
the practice of law. In 1904 he became a member of the law firm of Lehman, 
Gates & Lehman, and for years the late Leopold Lehman, past master of com- 
mercial and business law, then gradually retiring, was his Gamaliel. In 1911 
the firm became Lehman, Gates & Martin, and in 1915, Gates & Martin, which 
it remained until the end of 1919. Few lawyers appear so seldom in court, and 
few have such a clientele seeking advice on legal phases of commercial and 
financial activities, the drafting and interpretation of contracts, the settlement of 
estates and the transfer of real estate. Mr. Gates has never sought nor held 
political office, but has been highly honored by his associates in his profession. 
He is a member of the Tennessee Bar Association ; was president of the Lawyers' 
Club in 1918, was vice-president for Tennessee of the American Bar Association 
for 1919-1920; was chairman of the legal advisory board, division two, Shelby 
County, during the war; and is vice-president and a director of the Memphis 
Bar & Law Library Association. He is chairman of the general committee in 
charge of organizing and promoting the Jewish Hospital Association, and has 
been a trustee of the Congregation Children of Israel since 1913. He was presi- 
dent of the Young Men's Hebrew Association from 1902 to 1904; president of 
the Rex Club from 1912 to 1914, and has been president of the Egyptians since 
1917. Still Mr. Gates finds time for reading and studying the legal classics. 
He and Miss Theresa Cecilia Hexter were married April 18, 1905. They have 
two children, Elizabeth Sarah Gates and Marian Henrietta Gates. 



218 



James; Cbtoarb &tarfe 




| AMES EDWARD STARK went into the lumber business in 
Chicago, where he was born, spent his early years in it and 
an allied line, and now may well be said to be at the top of it. 
The son of James Henry and Mrs. Phebe Eliza Stark, he was 
born June 24, 1868, and attended the public schools in Chicago. 
In 1884, he went with the Lumber Exchange in Chicago, and 
after four years with that concern he connected himself with the Lumber Trade 
Journal, where he spent two years. In 1890, he joined the active forces of 
George T. Houston & Company, of Chicago. He came South and spent five 
years with Houston Brothers, then located at Bigbee, Mississippi. He moved to 
Memphis in 1899, and three years later organized the firm of James E. Stark & 
Company, Inc., which took a high stand from the first in this great lumber mar- 
ket and has grown steadily until it ranks second to none. From the first he 
made a specialty of buying high grade lumber from the mills of the surrounding 
territory, and through strict business integrity, first in wholesaling, later in 
manufacturing hardwood lumber, veneers, flooring and other similar products, 
has established a business of enviable reputation, both in the domestic, as well as 
the foreign markets of the world. First, in connection with his export business, 
which has grown to tremendous proportions, and later for pleasure, Mr. Stark 
has spent many seasons in Europe and traveled time and again all over it. He 
has also crossed the Pacific Ocean and cruised the beautiful green Caribbean Sea, 
visiting the main cities of Central America. As his original business of James 
E. Stark & Company, Inc., prospered financially, as well as in volume, Mr. Stark 
began to branch out into other lines of lumber. He is not only president of the 
original firm, but also of the Memphis Veneer & Lumber Company, president 
of the Memphis Hardwood Flooring Company and vice-president of the Ten- 
nessee Hoop Company. He is one of the most active members of the Southern 
Hardwood Traffic Association, having been president of that organization during 
the years of 1917, 1918 and 1919. There he was of great value to the entire 
lumber trade, for his work in organizing the different departments of that asso- 
ciation and securing a fair and proper adjustment of lumber rates and rules 
governing them with the transportaion companies. He is a member of the Ten- 
nessee Club, Memphis Country Club, Chamber of Commerce and the Lumber- 
men's Club. Leading factor as Mr. Stark has been in the development of the 
lumber industry he still has had time to be equally as effective in all general 
movements for the development of the community. He was married first in 
Chicago in 1898 to Miss Jessica Houston, and after her death married to Miss 
Marion Hatch, also of Chicago. His children are James Edward, Jr., and 
Misses Jessica and Sarah Stark. 



223 



W. &. gumpfcrep 




ILLIAM RIVERIUS HUMPHREY, planter, cotton shipper, 
banker, compress operator, and public spirited citizen of Green- 
wood, Mississippi, was born in Guilford, Chenango County, 
New York, July 26, 1869, the son of George Frederick and 
Matilda M. (Osborn) Humphrey. At the age of twelve years 
he went to work in a flag stone quarry, and he put in his time 
there and in farming in Chenango County until he was nineteen years of age, 
securing what education he could at the common schools and at a business 
college between the times that he was working. Then he taught school for a 
time and at the age of twenty-one years he came south, stopping at Vicksburg, 
Mississippi, where he worked for two seasons in the cotton office of John 
Thompson & Company as bookkeeper. He moved to Greenwood late in 1894, 
where he and Major M. C. Humphrey established the firm of Humphrey & 
Company and began the buying and shipping of cotton. The firm started in a 
small way, handling but three thousand bales the first year, but the high degree 
of energy, efficiency and sterling honesty which Mr. Humphrey put into it from 
the beginning has sent it steadily to the front until now the firm does a business 
of some 150,000 bales per annum. This is mainly in benders and the extra 
staples. Major Humphrey died in 1910 and since that time Mr. Humphrey has 
conducted the business as sole owner. Now the firm has fifteen buying branches, 
mainly in Mississippi, but also extending into Tennessee and Texas, while it 
maintains selling offices in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and in Liverpool, 
England. In this connection Mr. Humphrey is a member of the New York 
and New Orleans Cotton exchanges and an associate member of the Liverpool 
Cotton Exchange. He is president of the Shellmound Plantation Company, 
planting forty-eight hundred acres of cotton, and of the Taconic Plantation 
Company, planting a thousand acres. He is president of the Sunflower Com- 
press Company at Indianola, and of the Rosedale Compress Company ; vice- 
president of the Greenwood Compress & Storage Company ; director in the 
Tallahatchie Compress Company; president of the Humphrey-Coker Seed Com- 
pany of Hartsville, South Carolina, and Greenwood; of the Lawrence Printing 
Company, and the Schilling Auto Company of Greenwood, and a director in 
the Greenwood Bank & Trust Company. As president of the Greenwood Cham- 
ber of Commerce he is one of the most active factors in the growth of the com- 
munity. He is also a member of the Presbyterian Church, a Rotarian, an 
Elk and a Knight of Pythias. When the Delta Bank failed in 1913, Mr. Hum- 
phrey through a sense of moral obligation although not legally liable, cast his 
entire personal fortune into the scale. He gave up a quarter of a million dollars 
but every depositor was paid in full. Mr. Humphrey and Miss Susan Baird 
were married June 3, 1914. They have two children, William R. Humphrey, 
Junior, and George Frederick Humphrey. 



224 





ro.Tv^u^, , 



P. 0. fflt&tt 




[URRELL OTHO McGEE, pioneer merchant, planter, banker, 
cotton buyer and capitalist, is one of the most progressive and 
successful citizens of the Mississippi Delta. Born in Ander- 
son, South Carolina, November 18, 1857, the son of William 
S. and Annie (Brock) McGee. They moved to Tate County, 
Mississippi, where he was educated in the public schools and 
under a private instructor. At the age of eighteen years he began work as a 
clerk for Smith & Company, at Senatobia, Mississippi. Later he and his father 
entered business under the firm of W. S. McGee & Son, which firm oper- 
ated a general store on the Lynnwood Plantation in Tate County, which he 
managed quite successfully. In 1886 he moved to the Delta since which time he 
has been engaged continuously in various lines of business in Leland, Missis- 
sippi, where he has been one of the biggest factors in the marvelous development 
of that wonderful section. His first connection there was as manager of the 
large store owned by Gabbert, Moore & Company, in which he had an interest, 
which firm was succeeded by the present firm of McGee, Dean & Company, 
composed of C. C. Dean and himself, which is one of the strongest and most 
successful firms in the South today. In 1899 he organized the Bank of Leland 
and has served as president since its organization, which bank enjoys the repu- 
tation of being one of the strongest and largest banks in the State. He is also 
president of the Leland Compress Company, which was organized due to his 
efforts, and vice-president of The McGee Dean Company, large mercantile firm, 
which supplies their large planting interest, and owns thousands of acres of 
Delta lands ; also senior member of McGee, Dean & Company, cotton buyers, 
exporters and planters, who have branch buying offices at Greenwood and 
Clarksdale, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, 
and selling offices at Boston, Massachusetts, New Bedford, Massachusetts, Provi- 
dence, Rhode Island, Gastonia, North Carolina, and Liverpool, England, and 
who own and cultivate approximately twenty thousand acres of land, and are 
known throughout the world for their honest dealing. He has vast other interests 
financially in various lines. Mr. McGee is a member of the Baptist Church and 
takes much interest in religious affairs. He is one of the best posted men on 
history and affairs of Leland and Washington County, big hearted, public spir- 
ited, known and appreciated by the entire community. On December 28, 1887, 
he was married to Miss Cora Dean of Senatobia, who died in 1899, having two 
sons and one daughter. Charles H. and Ralph received their education at Mis- 
sissippi College, Clinton, and Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, Vir- 
ginia, and are engaged actively now with their father in their extensive planting 
and cotton business. Camille is a graduate of Blue Mountain College, Blue 
Mountain, Mississippi, and also a graduate of the Conservatory of Music at 
Boston, Massachusetts, where she finished with honors. In December, 1901, 
Mr. McGee and Mrs. Addie Milam were married. 



229 



C 3. jftlullens; 




DWIN J. MULLENS of Clarksdale is one of the few natives 
of Coahoma County, Mississippi, of his age, for he was 
born there November 5, 1860, the son of B. S. and Mattie A. 
Mullens, and he has been a conspicuous factor in transforming 
it into the garden spot of the world, which it now is, from 
the wilderness in which he first saw it, named, appropriately 
at that time, after the Indian word which meant red panther. He has had the 
satisfaction of seeing lands which he bought for six dollars per acre increase to 
four hundred dollars, and he attributes most of this increase in value to drainage 
and good roads, for both of which he has ever been a strong advocate, having 
been appointed by the governor a commissioner of the first drainage district 
organized in the county. Having received a common school education, partly 
in Alabama and partly in Mississippi, he entered business for himself in 1900, 
planting and merchandising under the firm name of E. J. Mullens at Clover Hill, 
and with very little capital, but today he operates five thousand acres and is 
rated far above a million dollars in his assets. He has no taste for politics, but 
has consented to act as president of the drainage district and member of the 
board of supervisors for the good that he could do for his community. In both 
positions his unswerving honesty, devotion to every duty and sound judgment 
were of great value to the taxpayers. He is first vice-president of the Planters 
Manufacturing Company, director in the Planters Bank, director in the Delta 
Grocery & Cotton Company, director in the Coahoma Cotton Sales Company, 
stockholder in the Peoples Compress Company, director in the Johnson-Harlow 
Lumber Company, director in the Friedman-Schultz Shoe Company and director 
in the new wholesale drygoods company. But Mr. Mullens' real enjoyment is 
derived from his church and charitable work. Growing up at a time when his 
country was considered wild in the habits of much of its population as well as 
in its lack of physical development, he was ever of a deeply religious turn of 
mind, but never narrow. For several years he has been chairman of the Metho- 
dist Finance Committee, he and all of the members of his family being members 
of that denomination. It was through him that the $100,000 Methodist Church 
was built at Clarksdale. He is a trustee in the Mississippi Childrens Orphan 
Home at Jackson, and has adopted one of the little boys from that institution. 
His motto in life is to help his fellow man, regardless of who he is and what his 
station in life may be, and he has aided many a struggling man back into the right 
road. Mr. Mullens was married on March 18, 1896, to Miss Clara Bobo, daugh- 
ter of John Bobo, and a member of one of the leading families of the Delta. 
Their children are E. J., Jr., and Mrs. Mary Lane Armstrong. 



230 




r 




i/a<J Sjl^s 



ft. Jf. MtMonaih 




HEN Samuel Flatcher McDonald came to Memphis, Tennessee, 
in 1901, it required $1,660 of his capital of $1,700 with which 
to equip a small bakery on Madison Avenue just below Third 
Street, and with the remaining $40 he bought ten barrels of 
flour C. O. D., resulting in this flour being both his stock of 
raw material for manufacturing and his cash capital "for oper- 
ation. But if he happens to tell you this, there will be in his manner no sugges- 
tion of self adulation, but on the contrary a sincere expression that since Memphis 
has been good enough to him to make this possible, he ought to try to be good 
to Memphis. Memphians know that he has shirked no public obligation, first 
with his time when time was the main thing that he had, and later with both his 
time and his money as he had prospered. Mr. McDonald was born in Biggsville, 
Illinois, July 9, 1871, the son of William and Rebecca (Nelson ) McDonald. The 
family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, in 1878, where he got some schooling, 
but also had to work, having been the youngest elevator boy in the then drygoods 
house of Bullene, Moore, Emery & Company. When he was ten years of age, 
the family moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he attended the public schools 
until he was sixteen years of age, when he went in a minor capacity with the 
Lysle Milling Company. That was the only concern for which he ever worked 
after quitting school. He remained there until 1901. During the latter part of 
the time that he was with the Lysle company, he traveled selling flour for sev- 
eral years in the country south and west of Memphis, and realized from the 
fertility of that land that Memphis had a great future. He finally came into 
Memphis to see what sort of a city was the logical center for that section. He 
saw the possibility here and at once took advantage of it, moving here in 1901, 
when the commercial baking industry was in its infancy. A grocer then who 
bought half a dozen "pones" as they were called here, was a fine customer. 
Largely through the grade of his product and the service which he rendered to 
the public, Mr. McDonald has seen the business grow in Memphis to its present 
proportions and working upon his assumption that native Memphians neither 
appreciate the Memphis of today nor realize the Memphis of the future, he is 
laying all of his plans for a far greater business. Mr. McDonald long has been 
an active member of the Associated Charities, and was chairman of its commit- 
tee which in 1914 brought the National Sociological Congress here, but his most 
active work for the public good has been as an originator and constant worker 
for the Chamber of Commerce Farm Bureau. He is a member of the Rotary 
Club, Chamber of Commerce, Colonial Country Club, Al Chymia Temple and a 
director in the Commercial Trust & Savings Bank. He married Miss Kate 
Early Prest in 1895. S. Floyd McDonald is their only child. 



235 



W8L. 3L &ansom 




lILLIAM ANDERSON RANSOM, president of the Gayoso 
Lumber Company, Memphis, Tennessee, is a native of Middle 
Tennessee, and was born November 8, 1878, in Murfreesboro, 
the son of James A. and Lillie (Anderson) Ransom. He was 
educated in the public schools of Murfreesboro and later went 
to Webb's School, Bellbuckle, Tennessee, where he finished his 
education. When he was twenty-three years old he went into the lumber busi- 
ness for himself in Murfreesboro and at the age of twenty-four he married Miss 
Lillian Hodge, of Murfreesboro. They now have one son (Charles R.), and a 
daughter (Florence Hodge). Shortly after entering the lumber business in 
Murfreesboro Mr. Ransom took his brother, Charles R. Ransom, into the busi- 
ness as a partner and for three years they successfully operated under the firm 
name of W. A. Ransom & Company. The business was then moved to Nash- 
ville where they continued to do a nice business and in 1906 the business was 
again moved to Memphis, where the Ransom brothers organized the Gayoso 
Lumber Company — W. A. Ransom being president and general manager and 
C. R. Ransom becoming secretary and treasurer. Since its organization the 
Gayoso Lumber Company has steadily grown and expanded until the product 
of its mills is known, not only from the Great Lakes to the Gulf and from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, but in foreign lands, where a nice export business is done 
with the United Kingdom and the Continent. The company has large timber 
holdings in St. Francis County, Arkansas. This property is situated near the 
Bankhead Highway and is only twenty-five miles from Memphis, and as fast 
as the timber is cleared from the land it is being turned into a model plantation. 
Here Mr. Ransom intends building an ideal country home. He has selected a 
beautiful building site surrounded by great oak trees and he proposes to install 
every modern convenience known to the city home in his country place. Prac- 
tically one thousand acres have been cleared and more will follow as soon as it 
can be made ready for the plough. The land is very fertile and produces fine 
crops of cotton, corn and alfalfa. Mr. Ransom's latest purchase for the Gayoso 
Lumber Company consists of eight thousand acres of fine hardwood timber near 
Grenada, Mississippi. It is his idea to erect a large band mill in Grenada for 
the purpose of cutting this timber. It will be necessary to build several miles 
of railroad, erect office buildings, a hotel for the accommodation of employees, 
open a lumber yard and the entire proposition will represent, when complete, a 
large investment. He hopes to have this plant in operation within a short time, 
and intends devoting the product of this mill largely to the export trade. In 
addition to his interests outside of the city of Memphis, Mr. Ransom is always 
deeply interested in the affairs of his home city and is a member of the Ten- 
nessee Club, the Memphis Country Club, the Colonial Country Club, the Lum- 
berman's Club and the Chamber of Commerce. 



236 



C. I. ^tblep 




LARENCE LEE SIVLEY, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the 
leading lawyers of the Mid-South, and also a large planter of 
cotton in the Mississippi Delta, was born in Hinds County, 
Mississippi, near Raymond, March 14, 1871, the son of William 
Rufus and Lelia Josephine Sivley, she being a niece of Judge 
Stokes, long a leader of the bar at Hernando, Mississippi. 
Judge Sivley's father, also a native of the same locality, was one of the large 
planters and slave-holders in that section of Mississippi prior to the Civil War. 
Judge Sivley's great-grandfather was a native of Holland and went to where 
Huntsville, Alabama, now is at the same time that did the man for whom it is 
named. He was a typical thrifty Hollander who reared on the creek below 
Huntsville a large family which became prominent in both Alabama and Mis- 
sissippi. Judge Sivley's grandmother on his paternal side was Miss Eliza 
Burleson of Decatur, Alabama, a family as conspicuous for its strength in the 
early days of Alabama as it since has become in the public affairs of Texas and 
the Nation. Judge Sivley grew up on his father's plantation and then went to 
the Chamberlain-Hunt Academy at Port Gibson, Mississippi, where he received 
his intermediate education and then to the University of Mississippi at Oxford, 
where he took both the literary and law courses. Upon the completion of the 
latter, he opened an office for the practice of his profession in Oxford, where 
he enjoyed a constantly increasing practice until 1906 when the trustees of the 
University recognized his ability and elected him professor of law in the insti- 
tution from which he had graduated thirteen years previously. He filled that 
position with credit to both himself and the University for the term of 1906-7, 
when he resigned and came to Memphis. The bar recognized at once in him an 
able accession to its ranks and the public speedily reached the same conclusion 
as to his capacity as a lawyer and his clientele grew steadily until 1910, when 
he accepted the position as general attorney for the Illinois Central and Yazoo & 
Mississippi Valley railroad systems, with headquarters in Chicago. He held that 
for five years, but he loved the general practice of law better than having merely 
one client, resigned in 1915 and returned to Memphis, where he is the head of 
the firm of Sivley, Evans & McCadden, than which there is no stronger law 
firm in the Mid-South. Judge Sivley has never sought public office, but was a 
member of the Mississippi State Democratic committee for ten years and a 
delegate to the National Convention in 1904. He is a member of the Phi Delta 
Theta fraternity, the Tennessee and Memphis Country clubs and Chamber of 
Commerce, and of the University and South Shore Country clubs in Chicago. 
He and Miss Minnie Clopton were married November 29, 1899. Their only 
child, Clarence Lee, Junior, died in 1908, at the age of nineteen months. 



241 



©r. $. OT. Toombs; 




jERCY WALTHALL TOOMBS, Memphis, Tennessee, physi- 
cian and surgeon confining his practice to obstetrics and gyne- 
cology in which line he has risen rapidly to a point where for 
some years he has been recognized by the medical profession 
generally as one of the leaders in the Mid-South, is a native 
of Greenville, Mississippi, where he was born August 5, 1880. 
His father, Doctor Reuben Sanders Toombs, was one of the leading medical 
men of the Mississippi Delta and later of Memphis for a number of years. His 
mother was formerly Miss Fannie Ray. His Christian names — those of two 
Mississippi families highly distinguished both for their attainments and refine- 
ment, indicate the class to which the Toombs family belonged and the circle in 
which its friendship and associations lay. The senior Doctor Toombs sent his 
son to Georgetown College where he received at the age of twenty-one years 
the degree of bachelor of arts, as the honor member of the class of 1901, being 
its valedictorian. The young man then decided to follow the footsteps of his 
father and went to Tulane University in New Orleans where he earned the 
degree of doctor of medicine in 1905. His honors there were as signal as they 
had been at college, for he was chosen orator of the day for the Founder's Day 
celebration of Tulane University in his graduating year. He returned at once 
to his home in the Mississippi Delta where he began the practice of his profes- 
sion under the most auspicious circumstances. During the two years that he 
remained there Doctor Toombs was district surgeon for the Yazoo & Missis- 
sippi Valley and the Southern railroads. He also was president of the Green- 
ville Board of Health for the same period. These positions together with the 
general practice which came to him would have more than satisfied the ordinary 
young doctor, but he sought a wider field and in 1907 came to Memphis. Here 
he was district surgeon for the Illinois Central Railroad system from 1908 to 
1916, when he resigned to give all of his attention to his then large practice. 
Immediately upon coming to Memphis he was elected professor of physiology at 
the College of Physicians & Surgeons, which chair he filled until 1909, when 
that institution became the College of Medicine of the University of Tennessee. 
Since then he has been professor of Obstetrics in the latter college. He has been 
obstetrician-in-chief at the Baptist Memorial Hospital and at the Memphis 
General Hospital since 1909. In 1915 he received the degree of Fellow of the 
American College of Surgeons. He is a member of the Phi Delta Theta literary 
and the Phi Chi medical fraternities. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, a 
Shriner, a Knight Templar ; a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Mem- 
phis Country Club and the Rotary Club. Doctor Toombs and Miss Amy Mor- 
ton were married February 15, 1915. 



242 





? 





ft. C, Atones 

|ICHARD CARNOT TOWNES, planter, merchant and banker, 
Philipp, Mississippi, was born January 16, 1871, at Palo Alto 

RH (High Tree ) Landing on the Tallahatchie River near Minter 
Mg City, the son of James Armstead and Emma (Kennon) 
Townes. His father was a pioneer settler in that section of 
the country, became probably the largest individual planter 
in the Delta and for many years had a standing for integrity, honesty, charity 
and ability second to none. Mr. Townes attended the public schools of Minter 
City until he was fourteen years of age, when he went to the Webb School at 
Bellbuckle, Tennessee, for two years and then to the University of Mississippi 
for the same length of time. At the age of nineteen years he took charge of 
some fifteen hundred acres of land belonging to his father on which he was 
born, and managed that with success for two years. Upon having attained his 
majority, he began planting on his own account with seven hundred and forty- 
six acres, a portion of the place that he had been managing for his father. 
Under the able tutelage of his father he has become one of the best planters on 
the river, and has become one of the most successful. He owns now nearly five 
thousand acres of the beautiful Tallahatchie River land, about two-thirds of 
which he has in a high state of cultivation. He lives on his plantation in a 
magnificent mansion supplied with artesian water and electric lights ; manned 
by a corps of trained servants most of whom were born on the plantation, many 
of them descendants of slaves in the family ; and with concrete walks connecting 
the mansion with the various outhouses and quarters, all of which are in keeping. 
In fact he has in the country every convenience of both the city and the country 
with none of the nuisances of either. Aside from his plantation, Mr. Townes 
is president of the Planters Bank of Philipp, and a stockholder in the Minter 
City Oil Works ; the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company of Clarksdale, and 
Graves-Dix (Inc.) of Memphis. Mr. Townes has never sought public office, 
but at the request of Governor Brewer he accepted appointment as a member 
of the Upper Yazoo Levee Board, where his sound business judgment, sterling 
integrity and absolute honesty were of great benefit to the entire district for 
four years. He is also one of the three commissioners who serve without pay 
and have given Tallahatchie the finest road in the state, extending its entire 
length and connecting with the Coahoma and LeFlore County systems. He is 
a member of the Methodist Church ; of the Beta Theta Pi college Greek letter 
fraternity ; of the Greenwood lodge of Elks, and for twenty-five years has been 
a member of the Tennessee Club in Memphis. He and Mrs. Townes have 
traveled widely throughout this continent and Europe and Asia. Mr. Townes 
and Miss Josie Ford of Shreveport, Louisiana, were married June 8, 1904. 
They have no child. 



247 



A. H. Bobbs 




[YDNEY LEE DODDS, planter, manufacturer, business man 
and philanthropist of Clarksdale, Mississippi, had attained 

S/|u\ ample financial success in life, ever helping some weaker one 
(§W up the ladder as he himself climbed higher, but it remained 
for the entry of his country into the World War to show the 
metal that was in him. He cast himself and his entire for- 
tune into the scales. Too old for military service, he tendered to the govern- 
ment his services, his wagon factory at Clarksdale, his beautiful home at Biloxi, 
Mississippi, in fact everything that he possessed, free from a cent of profit to 
himself. He made many trips in the interest of war work, and never turned in a 
bill for a cent for any expense incurred by those trips. He was made a member 
of the appeals draft board for his native state of Kentucky, and served as chief 
of the American Protective League for his section, where he ran down many 
ugly cases and saw a number of men forced into the army or behind penitentiary 
bars. When Liberty bonds began to issue, he not only bought heavily himself, 
but instructed the head of each of the many concerns that he controlled to take 
double all assessments and that employes were to take double the amount that the 
employe might be assessed for each issue, and assisted them in doing so. He 
has never sold a Liberty bond, but on the contrary has bought, not at the market 
discount, but for par and accrued interest every one offered him by a widow, 
preacher or veteran forced to sell. Mr. Dodds was born at Hickman, Kentucky, 
October 5, 1865, the son of Johsua Hickman and Martha Freeman Dodds. He 
had a public school education and worked his way for two years at ten cents per 
hour through the college at Lexington. He worked on a farm at home at twenty 
dollars per month and in 1888 went to the Mississippi Delta, hauling logs at 
Shelby, driving the team himself. He and his brother bought one hundred and 
seven acres, mainly on time, where Doddsville now is. There they cleared, paid 
for and developed finally five thousand five hundred acres. This was later sold 
for a then fancy price. He has been from its organization a stockholder and 
director in the Planters Bank ; is a stockholder and director in the Delta Grocery 
& Cotton Company ; owner of the Dodds Wagon Company, recently consolidated 
with the James & Graham Wagon Company ; stockholder and director in the 
Friedman-Schulz Shoe Company ; director in the Valley Drygoods Company ; 
president of the Valley Construction Company, and director in the Carnegie 
Library. Mr. Dodds and Miss Anna Baltzer were married June 10, 1896. 
They have two children, Sydney Baltzer and Miss Anna Lynne Dodds. Mr. 
Dodds for years has laid aside a per cent of his income regularly for the edu- 
cation of worthy poor children. So far he has aided fifty-nine through college 
and says that he hopes to make it a thousand before his death. He is an ardent 
lover of clean out-of-door sports, especially hunting and shooting. 



248 



3 . 3P. Jflarfe* 




JEFFERSON DAVIS MARKS, Memphis, Tennessee, general 
manager, secretary and treasurer of the Memphis Rice Mill, 
and vice-president and general manager of the Joy Rice Mill- 
ing Company of Wheatley, Arkansas, was born January 16, 
1866 at Osyka, Mississippi, a few miles inside the State of 
^ Mississippi from the Louisiana line, the son of Joseph and Sarah 
Francis Marks. He left school at the age of fourteen years and became a clerk 
in a general merchandise store. He learned telegraphy and for a time served 
as agent for the Illinois Central Railroad at Jackson, Mississippi, and at Amite, 
Louisiana. In fact Mr. Marks spent most of his life in Louisiana until he came 
to Memphis. In 1891 he went to Crowley, Louisiana, where he opened a store 
and conducted it for four years and then went into the business in which he 
has become one of the leaders in the South — that of milling rice. It then was 
in its infancy. There were only ten mills in the United States when he built his 
first one. In 1895 he became interested financially in the rice mill at Crowley 
and took charge of its management. It was known as the Marks Rice Mill. In 
1903 he erected the Ida Rice Mill at Rayne, Louisiana, and the Morse Rice Mill 
at Morse, Louisiana. He conducted all of these institutions with such great 
success that in 1911, he was induced to come to Memphis and become inter- 
ested with Mr. Joseph Newburger and Mr. Sylvan Levy in the Memphis Rice 
Mill, which he erected and which he has managed from that time to this. It is 
said by experts to be second to none in the rice belt for economy of operation and 
the class of its products. Mr. Marks has been an important factor in the devel- 
opment of rice culture. In 1895 there were but five million bushels of the grain 
produced in the United States and there was not an even fairly equipped mill, 
the old pounder system being used for reducing the crop to an edible state. Now 
the production amounts to some fifty million bushels and there are hundreds of 
mills, the crop in Louisiana surpassing in value that of either her sugar or her 
lumber. From the hazardous dependence upon rains for the necessary overflows 
of the rice fields, the industry now has certain irrigation by pumps. In Louis- 
iana, Mr. Marks took a keen interest in public affairs. He was delegate from 
the Seventh Congressional district to the Democratic National Convention in 
1904, served long as an alderman of Crowley, was a major on the staff of Gov- 
ernor Jared Y. Sanders, chairman of the board of health when yellow fever was 
kept out of Crowley by sanitation, and one of three commissioners which located 
the State Rice Experiment Station at Crowley, an institution of great value to 
the entire industry in the State. He was a member of the Louisiana Agricul- 
tural Board, representing the Seventh District. Mr. Marks and Miss Carlon 
Sternberger were married January 14, 1891. Their children are Louis S. and 
J. D., Junior. 



253 



J. ft. Cogton 




)OSEPH TRIBBLE COSTON, Osceola, Arkansas, one of the 
leading lawyers of eastern Arkansas, is a native of Tennessee, 
where he had achieved prominence before going to Arkansas. 
He was born on a farm near Elora, Lincoln County, Tennes- 
see, March 14, 1869, the son of James Joseph and Mary 
Marinda (Smith) Coston. Educated in the common schools 
of Lincoln County and at the law department of Vanderbilt University, he prac- 
ticed law at Fayetteville, Tennessee, from 1891 to 1900. The most important 
case with which he was connected in Tennessee was his association in the suc- 
cessful defense of Colonel Holman when George L. Diemer sued him for 
$10,000 for alleged breach of trust. However, Mr. Coston with characteristic 
modesty says that he thinks his employment in this case was intentionally more 
beneficial to himself than to the colonel. Immediately upon going to Osceola in 
1900, Mr. Coston took high rank at the bar and has held it ever since. Probably 
the most important litigation that he has handled there in so far as its effect 
upon the community at large is concerned was in connection with the drainage 
systems. Northeast Arkansas was a pioneer in the South in the matter of 
drainage. Many progressive strong men realized its necessity and ultimate 
value to all. Others preferred to hold their lands for future advances in prices 
and could not afford to do so and pay the heavy taxes which drainage would 
necessitate. This meant an inevitable clash. Mr. Coston represented the pro- 
gressive element in the original litigation in which the constitutionality of the 
drainage laws was at issue and secured from the Supreme Court a sweeping 
decision upholding the act of 1909 and giving it a broad interpretation under 
which it has been possible to install the magnificent system of drainage in 
Mississippi County and later in the other counties of the St. Francis Basin. 
Now you cannot put your foot down in Mississippi County without stepping on 
soil that has been benefitted by drainage districts which Mr. Coston has organ- 
ized as attorney for property owners. Mr. Coston has never held public office 
except that he was elected to the Tennessee legislature from Lincoln County 
in 1898 and served with a most creditable record. His library of forty-five 
hundred volumes is said to be one of the two best law libraries in the entire 
South. During the World War he was in every Liberty loan and Red Cross 
drive and was chairman for the lower portion of his county for the sale of war 
savings stamps, to which he gave two days a week from March to October aver- 
aging two speeches a day. He is a member of the commission for examining 
applicants for admission to the bar. He is a Methodist, Mason, Knight of 
Pythias and Odd Fellow. Mr. Coston and Miss Cora Goodrich were married 
October 10, 1894. Their children are James Goodrich, Sarah Clark, Anna Lee 
and Mary Hale Coston. 



254 




^^jJ^^j^^^S^ 1 ^^^-^. C3/>-iZV?^Zl 





J. Y^J2^ 




3. «. Walsfj 

K&OHN THOMAS WALSH, merchant, banker, farmer and capi- 
talist, was born near Chicago, Illinois, December 7, 1854, but 
came to Memphis with his parents, who were of Irish extrac- 
tion, at the age of five years. He has lived here ever since, and 
has been one of the most important factors in the growth of 
the city. He attended the public schools of the city for a time, 
but the condition of the family's finances was such that at the age of fifteen he 
went to work in the cigar stand at the Worsham House, then located on the site 
where the new Tri-State million-dollar hotel, of which company he is the presi- 
dent, soon will be erected. The following year, 1870, he went to work as a 
clerk for M. J. Gorman in a grocery store. On the first of January, 1873, he 
went to work on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad as a brakeman, later becom- 
ing a baggageman. His mother died of the yellow fever that summer, his father 
having preceded her in 1861. With what he had been able to save he bought 
out the cigar stand at which he had done his first work, and where his younger 
brother, Anthony, had succeeded him. Anthony continued to manage that 
business, while the elder brother remained with the railroad until the fall of 
1877, when he and his brother, with what they had been able to accumulate, 
organized the grocery firm of J. T. Walsh & Brother at the corner of Overton 
and Main, which still does under the same name a magnificent business two 
blocks further south. The business prospered from the beginning and no man, 
not even the proprietors, ever knew how much groceries went without hope of 
reimbursement to poor families in distress or how much money was paid out for 
rent to prevent the ejection of widows. The brothers knew every man, woman 
and child in North Memphis and almost the same might be said of the northern 
portion of the county, and they had done favors for most of them. Their 
kindly dispositions, obliging manners and capacity as merchants brought them a 
tremendous trade, even far across the line into Tipton County. Much of their 
surplus income was invested in lands in the northern part of the country at a 
time when land was cheap. In 1909, Mr. Walsh was most active in the organiza- 
tion of the North Memphis Savings Bank of which his brother Anthony was 
president until he died in 1912, and to which office he succeeded him. Mr. Walsh 
for years was a power in politics and still is when he cares to exert himself. He 
was elected a member of the Board of Public Works in 1893, police and fire 
commissioner in 1904, and was vice-mayor from 1906 to 1909. He was on the 
committee which built the General Hospital and on the Courthouse Commission, 
and is a member of the Auditorium Commission. He married Miss Elizabeth 
Bannon, July 22, 1879. Their children are: Anthony P., John T., Jr., Margaret 
M., Helen M. and Elizabeth G. 



259 



1. ». g>ateburp 




|T remained for a Michigan man — at that a lawyer — to come 
South, develop the big idea in cotton planting and to become 
the biggest producer of cotton in the world. This is only one 
of the many achievements of L. K. Salsbury since he came 
to Memphis. Born at Saline, Michigan, March 11, 1867, the 
son of George and Corintha Salsbury, he was educated at 
Albion College, Albion, Michigan, from 1884 to 1887, and in 1890 he was 
graduated from Ann Arbor with the degree of bachelor of law, having financed 
himself through both institutions. He practiced law in Grand Rapids until 1902, 
the following year moving south, practically without means, where he entered 
upon a business career which has been one of the most successful of any in 
the Mid-South. His first business in the South was in dealing in timber lands. 
Then he operated saw mills for a time. He spent eight months in Canton, Mis- 
sissippi, then a year in New Orleans, and then moved to Memphis. His first 
conspicuous act here was the organization of the big corporation — the first of 
its kind — which acquired the Robinsonville, Mississippi, plantation, which land 
has recently sold for the highest price of any pure farm land in this section of 
the country. He was president of the Mary Mac Plantation Company, which 
operated that business, until he went to Europe in 1910-11 and financed the 
Mississippi Delta Planting Company, owning thousands of acres of land near 
Scott, Mississippi, the largest cotton producer in the world; employing three hun- 
dred white men and thousands of negroes ; spending $50,000 yearly conducting 
the largest seed experimental station in the South, the benefit of which is given 
free to the public ; doing a big lumber manufacturing business and being the 
largest sellers in the country of cotton planting seed. This is only one of the 
big enterprises in which Mr. Salsbury is interested. He and a few associates 
own tremendous timber tracts in Arkansas, and no business proposition is too 
big for him to grasp its possibilities almost instantly, and handle if it possesses 
merit. Mr. Salsbury has no taste for holding or seeking public office, but for 
some years no man in Memphis has surpassed him in the promotion of any 
movement for the improvement of Memphis. He has given liberally of his time 
and his high degree of efficiency to every campaign for Liberty loans, hospitals 
and in fact every worthy cause or eleemosynary institution. He closed a most 
successful incumbency of one year as president of the Chamber of Commerce 
in 1919. Wide travels not only in the United States and Canada, but all over 
Europe and Egypt, have made Mr. Salsbury one of the broadest men in the 
community. He is a Shriner, a thirty-second degree Mason, and a member of 
the Colonial Country Club. He was married November 10, 1890, to Miss Ger- 
trude Shanks. The union has been blessed with only one child, Miss Helen, 
who is the wife of Dr. Shields Abemathy. 



260 




^7/a^tcr^ 



ft. JL »alton 




IARRY LUDLOW WALTON, Minter City, Mississippi, one 
of the most successful planters, shrewd business men, progres- 
sive citizens and delightful companions in the entire Delta, is 
a Quaker by ancestry and in religion, broadened by growing up 
in Illinois and spending his young manhood on the wide prai- 
ries of Kansas during the boom and town-site-fight days. He 
was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, April 2, 1863, the son of Jeremiah 
Barnard and Anna M. (Pyle) Walton. When he was a child the family moved 
to Illinois, where he received a common and high school education and then 
finished the course at Grand Prairie Seminary at Onarga, when he was nineteen 
years of age. He worked on a farm near Champaign, Illinois, for two years, and 
at the end of that time being just of age, he migrated to Kansas, stopping at 
Scott City. This was in 1885, just as the professional boomers were becoming 
experts in the building of cities over-night, selling the property the next day and 
the next night laying out another city ; in the meanwhile having frequent pitched 
battles over the location or removal of a county seat. Mr. Walton helped organ- 
ize the country around Scott City into Scott County, with Scott City as it county 
seat and held it against all comers. Land was changing hands rapidly and he 
was elected registrar of deeds, which he held for two terms or four years. Dur- 
ing his residence there he also engaged in the cattle business. After half a dozen 
years in Kansas, Mr. Walton moved to Joplin, Missouri, just about the time 
that lead and zinc were found there in large quantities. However, he loved the 
tilling of the soil, and returned to Champaign, where he spent six years farming 
and raising stock. Then he in partnership with an uncle went to Mississippi 
where they bought seventeen hundred and fifty acres of the prettiest land in 
the Delta at Sunnyside (now Walton) just a few miles below Minter City. 
Many of the up-country men who moved into the Delta failed to grasp the pecu- 
liar local conditions and for that reason did not find it agreeable, but Mr. Walton 
from the moment that he landed in the Delta entered heartily in the spirit of 
affairs there, joined with the better element in every movement for the improve- 
ment of conditions and brought with him many excellent progressive ideas which 
they were glad to adopt. He was the pioneer in tile drainage in LeFlore County. 
He has thrice been drafted into service on the Board of Supervisors, where he 
was a leader for good roads and for efficient administration of the county's affairs. 
The county soon will have completed one hundred and seventy-five miles of 
graveled highways. Some years ago he bought out his uncle's share in the 
plantation and he now owns six thousand acres, half of which is in cultivation. 
Mr. Walton and Miss Willie B. Robbins were married January 29, 1889. Their 
children are J. Barnard, Harry Leslie and Virginia Sophia. 



265 



$. p. £otorance 





RESTON BROOKS LOWRANCE, Memphis, Tennessee, and 
Ponca City, Oklahoma, for many years one of the largest con- 

P(&X tractors on the levees along the Mississippi River, a leading 
(§v planter in Mississippi County, Arkansas, active in many enter- 
prises for the upbuilding of Memphis and the surrounding ter- 
ritory, and now the executive head of one of the main oil 
companies in the Mid-Continent Field, is a native of the mountains of North 
Carolina. He was born in Catawba County, August 23, 1876, the son of William 
Ethel and Fannie (Martin) Lowrance. The father had been a gallant soldier 
of the Confederacy until he lost a leg in Virginia, and both parents were of sin- 
gularly high ideals, rearing a large family of sons, none of whom ever had his 
honor, veracity or integrity questioned. Mr. Lowrance attended school at Stony 
Point, near his home, and then took a course in Professor Lamond's Business 
College in Asheville. At the time that he finished at the business college, work 
on the Vanderbilt Estate at Biltmore, just out of Asheville, was at its height and 
Mr. Lowrance went to work there for the Otis Elevator Company. The wiry 
mountain lad, active, agile and industrious as a squirrel, made such an impres- 
sion on his superiors there that when the Biltmore contract was completed they 
took him to New York, and he remained with the Otis Elevator Company for 
several years, working in many of the larger American and Canadian cities. For 
a time also he worked as a structural steel worker for Post & McCord. In the 
meantime his elder brother, Charles J., had come to the Mississippi River and 
formed a partnership with Captain T. S. Aderholdt of Friar Point in the levee 
contracting business, and a younger brother, Lawson, had followed him in the 
same line. In 1898, Mr. Lowrance joined them, entering the employ of the 
firm of Aderholdt & Lowrance as commissary man while building the Dewey 
Loop at Burk's Landing, Mississippi. Two years later the three brothers bought 
Captain Aderholdt's interest in the firm and formed the partnership of Low- 
rance Brothers, from which Lawson later retired, and which for the next thirty 
years moved more earth in constructing levees along the Mississippi, Arkansas 
and Red Rivers than probably any other firm ever has moved. Later the other 
brothers, George, Tait, Edward and Blair, came to the Mississippi River and all 
the brothers formed the firm of Lowrance Brothers & Company and for many 
years there were few contracts of any size on the levee line from Charleston, 
Missouri, to the mouth of Red River of which they did not have a large share, 
being always favorites with the engineers on account of their combination of 
one hundred per cent capacity and integrity. Mr. Lowrance and Miss Frances 
K. Acree of Petersburg, Virginia, were married October 22, 1901. They have 
three children: Ruth, Bessie and P. B., Jr. 



266 















1 Hi 














2o^ 



ffl. €. ©enton 




iUDGE MANFORD ESCA DENTON, Marks, Mississippi, has 
been a leading figure ever since he went to Quitman County in 
the development of that community both along material and 
moral lines. He was born in Calhoun County, Mississippi, 
January 16, 1872, the son of W. H. and Susan Lovelace Den- 
ton. He attended the grammar schools of Lafayette County, 
and at eighteen years was graduated from the Normal School at Iuka. Five 
years later he received his diploma from the University of Mississippi, having 
taken the full course in law as well as a part of the course in letters. In the 
meantime he had been first assistant at the Tula Normal School and principal of 
Longtown Academy in Panola County. He began his successful career as a 
lawyer in Belen, then the county seat of Quitman County. A close student, of 
the highest moral character, ever attentive to any case intrusted to him and a 
discriminating judge of the law, he rose rapidly in his profession to the point 
where at thirty-six years of age. Governor Noel appointed him chancellor of 
the Seventh district. He was reappointed in 1912 by Governor Brewer, but 
resigned in 1914 to resume his practice and devote his time to his private affairs. 
Previously he had served a term and a half as member of the Legislature. Ever 
since the construction of the Yazoo-Delta line of the Yazoo & Mississippi Val- 
ley Railroad through Quitman County there had been talk of moving the county 
seat from Belen to a point of better transportation, but it remained for him to 
organize the Marks Townsite Company, buy half a section of land from the 
late L. Marks at what then was Riverside, lay off the town of Marks, name it 
for its pioneer settler and millionaire planter and move the county seat from 
Belen there. The first drainage meeting held in the Delta was called by Judge 
Denton, held in his office and resulted in a series of meetings culminating in the 
organization of the Tallahatchie Drainage District. When the drainage laws of 
the state were settled on the basis of the decision of the Supreme Court in the 
litigation growing out of this district, he organized the first drainage district 
under the new laws. He assisted in organizing the Riverside Bank and was its 
president from 1910 until he resigned in 1915. On account of the inadequacy of 
its river transportation, the impassability of its highways and the delay in build- 
ing railroads into it, the fertile lands of Quitman County were the slowest of any 
in the Delta to develop, and its population until recently was sparse and, with a 
few notable exceptions, mainly of the frontier type. Judge Denton was a leader 
not only in the material changes which have occurred but also in elevating the 
moral tone of the entire county. He and Miss Blanche Phillips were married 
February 27, 1898. and have seven children: Hal, Lex, Virginia, Dorothy, Sarah 
Blanche, Paul and Joel. 



271 



Jttoorfjeab »rtgf)t 



t-OORHEAD WRIGHT, Little Rock, Arkansas, executive head 

Mof the largest trust company in the State, and for years con- 
fejj spicuous in every movement for the material progress of the 
i§$ State, was born in Little Rock, June 18, 1872, the son of Fulton 
and Louisa (Watkins) Wright. After having attended the 
public schools and E. C. Gould's private school in Little Rock, 
he went to the Virginia Military Institute, where he was graduated in 1892 as 
cadet captain. He spent the next year in the medical department of the Uni- 
versity of Arkansas, but the lure of business was stronger for him than the pro- 
fession of medicine and in the fall of 1893 he entered the employ of Cornish 
& England as collector of rentals. The following year he entered the line which 
has developed gradually and in good part through his efforts into the most suc- 
cessful one in the State. His connection with it at first was not conspicuous, as 
he became collector of rentals for the firm of S. J. Johnson & Company. To 
this was soon added a business in real estate and not long thereafter the firm 
developed its department of mortgage loans. In 1899 the business was incor- 
porated as S. J. Johnson Company, and Mr. Wright was elected treasurer. The 
original capital stock of the company was only $2,000. Later the S. J. Johnson 
Company grew into a savings bank under the name of the Union Trust Company 
with a capital stock of $50,000 and in 1911 Mr. Wright was elected vice-presi- 
dent and treasurer. Four years later he was elected president of the Union & 
Mercantile Trust Company and now conducts that concern with a capital stock 
of $700,000 in place of the $2,000 with which he started. It is the pioneer trust 
company of the state and the largest, with every modern department fully devel- 
oped for service to the public. Mr. Wright is a member of the Little Rock 
Country Club and the Athletic Association, of both of which he has been presi- 
dent ; the Quawpaw Club ; the Arkansas Bankers Association, of which he has 
been president and is permanent chairman of its committee on thrift ; and was 
secretary of the Cotton States Conferences in 1914 and 1915; vice-president of 
the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges in 1914 and its treasurer in 
1915; director of the Little Rock Board of Commerce since 1918, and one of its 
committee on profitable farming since 1918, and on open shop ; was on the 
executive committee on war activities, and a director of the Little Rock branch 
Federal Reserve Bank since 1918. He served in the Spanish-American War 
as first lieutenant and adjutant of the Second Arkansas U. S. V., and was a 
member of the State Council of National Defense and state chairman of the 
National War Savings committee during the World War. Mr. Wright and Miss 
Hildegarde O. Penzel were married November 23, 1903. Their children are : 
Charles Penzel, Moorhead, Jr., and Fulton Watkins Wright. 



272 



B. WBL. Eotitns! 




AVID WILLIAM ROBINS, Tupelo, Mississippi, leader in his 
State in the enactment of legislation for good roads and drain- 
age, and in the practical application of that legislation ; mayor 
of his city for nine consecutive terms; planter; stock-raiser, 
and banker, is a native of Georgia, but went to Mississippi a 
mere babe in arms and says that he is as loyal a Mississippian 
as is any man born in the State. He was educated in the public schools of Lee 
County and began his career as a farmer. In that as in everything else that he 
has put his hand to he has succeeded. His three thousand-acre plantation just 
southeast of the city of Tupelo, only a few years ago a tangle of timber and 
undergrowth, now is one of the most beautiful in the entire State and probably 
unsurpassed for production by any in the upland section. He also owns a five 
hundred-acre plantation at Shannon and another of twelve hundred acres near 
Guntown. Cotton, corn and alfalfa are the main crops on the Tupelo place, while 
cattle and hogs are specialties, in addition to cotton, on the other places. He is 
a director in half a dozen banks in and near Tupelo. This is more than enough 
to have occupied all of the time and energy of an ordinary man, but Mr. Robins 
is no ordinary man. He wanted to be of some service to his community and the 
world at large, feeling that merely to have made a fortune for himself was not 
enough for a man to have done this world. His county suffered more from 
lack of good roads and drainage than from any other preventable causes. In 
1892 he suggested a drainage law and helped draft it. It became the first drain- 
age act in the State. He organized in Lee County the first district formed under 
that act. This law provided for an assessment of twenty-five cents per acre for 
drainage. Mr. Robins sponsored the amendment providing for financing all 
drainage districts by bond issues. It was largely through Mr. Robins that the 
first dredge was taken to Lee County for drainage work and it also was the first 
in the State. Town Creek was the main object for drainage in Lee County. It 
was some four feet wide and of about equal depth. Now it is sixty-five feet 
wide and fifteen feet deep, and rains which formerly remained on the ground 
for weeks after falling, now pass off so rapidly that thousands of acres of land 
are tillable for the first time and many other thousands made more valuable. 
Mr. Robins has been equally conspicuous in his road work. He is a commissioner 
for the Third county district, for the county and for the State. He sponsored 
the first concrete road in the county of which there are now some twenty-five 
miles, with an equal amount under construction. Mr. Robins was born in Troupe 
County, Georgia, August 3, 1865, the son of Jephtha and Eliza (Allen) Robins. 
He and Miss Imogene Kincannon were married December 27, 1893. They 
have one child, Miss Elizabeth. 



277 



<§. C. Hobe 




EORGE COLLINS LOVE, for more than half a century a 
citizen of Memphis, Tennessee, and one of her most successful 
business men, long a member of the City Board of Public 
Works, mayor for a short time and during that time one of the 
best mayors that the city has ever had, was born at Patriot, 
Indiana, July 28, 1845, the son of John and Annie L. (Col- 
lins) Love. He received his education in the public schools of his native city 
and came to Memphis in 1862. His first activity here was in the operation of 
a wood and lumber yard at the foot of Market Avenue, then on the main channel 
of the Mississippi River. He remained in that line for four years and then 
went into the steamboat business, later becoming the owner of a towboat used 
in towing staves which plied the lower river to New Orleans. In this he was suc- 
cessful for six years. Then the wonderful business acumen of the man came into 
play. In his old wood and lumber yard at the foot of Market Avenue, he had 
become familiar with the cost of getting out and hauling hewn timbers. As a steam- 
boat man he got in touch along the wharves of New Orleans with the exporters of 
staves and learned the value of the forked leaf white oak along the bluffs of the 
Mississippi River and of the giant cow oaks in the lowlands when converted into 
pipe staves and sold to the wine makers of France, Spain and Italy and to the 
brewers of the Teutonic countries to take the place of the white oak of Austria 
and Hungary, then fast disappearing, in the manufacture of their big vats and 
tuns. In 1872 he quit the river and became a pioneer in the then virgin forests 
of the alluvial lands along the Mississippi River and its tributaries in getting out 
the hewn sticks of white oak and exporting them, from which the staves were 
manufactured. For nearly a third of a century he was one of the largest and 
most successful operators in the country along that line, his reputation with the 
thousands of Slavonians who worked for him in the forests and with the for- 
eigners who bought his products being justly second to none for honesty and 
integrity. During all of this time Mr. Love had lived in Memphis, accumulating 
a comfortable estate which he invested judiciously mainly in real estate. He 
had long taken an interest in politics never seeking office but ever for the elec- 
tion of men who stood for honesty, capacity and integrity. Finally, in 1904, 
after having wound up his stave business his friends prevailed upon him to 
stand for the Board of Public Works. He was elected and for years in charge 
of the department of streets, bridges and sewers and later as mayor was most 
valuable to the community. Mr. Love has been married twice: First in 1877 
to Miss Lizzie D. Montana, who died in 1882, leaving one son, James W. ; and 
second in 1884 to Miss Mary G. Graham. Their children are: Mary G. ; Octavia 
M., and G. C, Jr. 



278 





J 















-Z^? ^ ^5^ 




^0 / ^^ 



3T. I. Solomon 




JOSEPH LEVY SOLOMON, Helena, Arkansas, head of the 
biggest cotton agency in that section, leader in every move- 
ment for the upbuilding of his community and one of the 
largest planters of cotton in Phillips County, was born in 
Helena, May 25, 1869, the son of Moses Lely and Pauline 
Solomon. At the age of nine years it devolved upon him to 
assist in the support of a large family, and he went to work for I. Goldsmith 
& Brother, now J. Goldsmith & Sons Company of Memphis, which firm had 
opened a store in Helena in 1878 on account of the epidemic of yellow fever in 
Memphis. Then he was with his uncle, Mr. Aaron Meyers, later Meyers & Ross, 
in the retail grocery business for fourteen years. At the age of twenty-four 
years, he organized the Solomon-Johnson Grocery Company, of which he was 
the head, which soon went exclusively into the wholesale business, for which he 
traveled three days in each week in Mississippi and the other three in Arkansas 
and which on a capital stock of $25,000 did an annual business of ten times 
that amount. When Mr. Julius Lesser, then head of the Lesser-Goldman Cot- 
ton Company, went to Helena to find a suitable man to take charge of his 
agency there, it was but natural that a leading banker told Mr. Lesser that Joe 
Solomon was the best man that could be found. The offer was made and 
Mr. Solomon accepted. Since that time Mr. Solomon had been a most valuable 
part of that tremendous cotton machine. He has developed the business of the 
company in his section to where it now handles sixty per cent of the cotton 
grown in that fertile and productive section of the Mid-South. Born and 
reared in Helena, Mr. Solomon has ever had ultimate faith in it and the alluvial 
land below it. In 1907, he and his brother Phillip bought the Williamson planta- 
tion of some twenty-four hundred acres adjoining Helena on the south. They 
have developed this into a most valuable property. Two years later the building 
which he was using for an office at the corner of Elm and Cherry Streets burned. 
In spite of the advice of his friends, he at once erected a five-story office build- 
ing on the site and now has a long waiting list of would-be occupants. In 1918, 
he and his brothers bought the Key-Ward Place at Wabash containing fourteen 
hundred acres and Joseph L. and Philip Solomon bought half a block of the 
most valuable business property in the city. In 1919 he, his brothers and 
Mr. Amos Jarman bought the Ratio Plantation of forty-seven hundred acres at 
Ratio, Arkansas. He is vice-president of the Security Bank & Trust Company 
and the Citizens Ice Company ; secretary of the Citizens Compress Company 
and for fourteen years has been president of the Helena Board of Trade, and is 
vice-president of the Forrest City Compress Company. He and Miss Sophye 
Altman were married June 6, 1892. Their children are Mrs. Myrtle S. Metz 
and Pauline Solomon. 



283 



OTL a. Cratolep 




IlLLIAM ABIE CRAWLEY, Clarksdale, Mississippi, leading 
manufacturer of ice in the Mid-South outside of Memphis, and 
one of the most progressive and enterprising citizens of the 
Mississippi Delta, was born in Kemper County, Mississippi, 
September 24, 1856, the son of James Monroe and Adeline 
(Clay) Crawley. At the age of eighteen years he went to 
work for the old Mississippi Central Railroad Company as night operator at 
Hazlehurst, Mississippi, and remained there just long enough to save money 
with which to take the course in a business college in St. Louis, Missouri. Then 
he worked for a time for a railroad company at Belmont, Missouri, and then 
went to Richmond, Virginia, where he started in with the Richmond & Alle- 
gheny Railroad as train dispatcher, rising through the positions of private secre- 
tary to the general manager, and train master to purchasing agent. He came to 
Memphis in 1895 and spent a year here in the oil business and then saw the 
great opening in the Mississippi Delta, especially in the growing demand for 
ice in that section. For several years he ran ice cars out of Memphis on the 
old Louisville, New Orleans & Texas (now the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley) 
Railroad through to New Orleans. When Clarksdale was, as it were, a mere 
babe in a cradle, he foresaw its wonderful growth and induced the late Colonel 
R. C. Graves, then head of the Bohlen-Huse Ice Company of Memphis, to join 
him in the erection of an ice plant at Clarksdale. Mr. Crawley began with a 
cash capital of $72.00, operating then as now under the name of the Crawley 
Ice Company. The first plant at Clarksdale, which was the second one erected 
in the Delta, had a daily capacity of ten tons, and was built in the edge of a 
cotton field. Now it has a capacity of one hundred tons, and the land on which 
the plant sits is worth $600.00 per front foot. Mr. Crawley has added to the 
Clarksdale plant an ice cream factory with a daily capacity of 3,000 gallons. 
Other portions of the Delta wanted ice also, and some time ago Mr. Crawley 
established at Tutwiler a factory of the same size as the one in Clarksdale which 
ships ice four ways from there daily, to all points in the upper portion of the 
Delta. He has also added to his holdings a plant of one hundred tons capacity 
and a storage capacity of seven thousand tons in Jackson, Mississippi, its main 
purpose being to ice the vegetable trains of the Illinois Central Railroad. To 
this also is attached an ice cream plant with a capacity of 2,000 gallons per day. 
This plant uses a large portion of the dairy products of Hinds and adjoining 
counties and for years Mr. Crawley has been actively encouraging dairying in 
that section. He is the sole owner of these plants. Mr. Crawley and Miss Grace 
Wier Hamill of Baltimore, Maryland, were married in February, 1887. Their 
children are: W. A., Junior; Percy Hamill, and Miss Sylvia, now Mrs. H. C. 
Patterson. 



284 




OJQh 



f / 



tOUUU' 





&. €. i£>imonston 

iggf^ EVERLY SIMONSON, planter and public spirited citizen of 
^(Q) Luxora, Arkansas, was born in Montgomery County, near 

SJ§n Springfield, Illinois, October 22, 1871, the son of Michael and 
Isi] Virginia Simonson. He received his early education in the 
T@j common schools of Montgomery County, Illinois, and finished 
^(/ife/lAS n ' s education with two years in Bushnell Normal College of 
his native State. After having engaged in farming and livestock raising in 
Montgomery County for some years, he began to look around to see if he could 
fine land either better than that of Illinois, or as good as that and cheaper in 
price. In Mississippi County, Arkansas, he found both and from that day to 
this has been a very bugler on the outer walls telling this fact to the world. He 
and Judge J. Otis Humphrey of his home county had their attention turned to 
the alluvial lands of northeastern Arkansas, and an investigation convinced them 
that they should own some of that acreage. In 1902, they made their first pur- 
chase of about two thousand acres at $3.00 per acre, and later that year added 
two sections of six hundred and forty acres each at $8.00 and three and one-half 
sections at $2.00. In 1910 he bought five sections at $12.00 per acre, and later 
the same year he paid $20.00 per acre for two additional sections. Nearly all 
of this land was wild, only occasional ridges having been cleared and partly 
cultivated. He and the Honorable Frank O. Lowden of Illinois had been 
friends for years and Mr. Simonson told the governor about the fertility of the 
Mississippi County lands. The result was that in 1911, Governor Lowden 
bought Mr. Simonson 's entire holdings of some eight thousand acres for $20.00 
per acre. As Governor Lowden's agent, Mr. Simonson bought for the governor 
enough adjoining land to make his Mississippi County plantation five by three 
miles square and also 32,000 acres in the Arkansas River Valley. Since then 
Mr. Simonson has been adding steadily to his own holdings near Luxora until 
now he owns more than seven thousand acres. He is chairman of the board of 
commissioners for the Grassy Lake and Tyronza drainage district, at its incep- 
tion the largest and most complete system in the United States, comprising three 
hundred miles of dredge work and many miles of lighter work, and making 
lands that then could be bought at from $5.00 to $15.00 per acre now rent for 
$20.00 to $35.00 and produce $100 to $300 worth of crops per acre per annum. 
In fact, no citizen of Mississippi County has been more active in the past eighteen 
years than Mr. Simonson for the upbuilding of the county and the alluvial 
empire in general. He is a member of the Southern Alluvial Land Association, 
the Knights of Pythias and the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Simonson 
and Miss Eddie Sue Rush of Ripley, Tennessee, were married October 20, 1920. 



289 




3. J&abntp g>mttf) 

l^gaONATHAN DABNEY SMITH, planter at Hillhouse, Missis- 
^(&J2 sippi and millionaire, was born in Hinds County, Mississippi, 

JW6 August 15, 1857, and grew up there one of several sons of 
Wz. Mr. Lemuel Harden and Mrs. Mary Bass Smith, during the 
vfcv lean years for the farmers of that section of the country. 
S?^) Realizing early that the opportunities of that section could 
occupy but a small portion of his energy, and satisfy but little of his ambition, 
he began working at twenty-two years of age as manager of one of the Richardson 
Estate plantations in Arkansas. In 1888, he took charge of a plantation belonging 
to the same estate at Green Grove, Mississippi. After some time there, he took 
charge of the plantation and business of Lombard Brothers at Deeson, in 
Bolivar County, Mississippi, managing that property with signal success for five 
years. In 1895, he went into business for himself and in the intervening fifteen 
years has become probably the largest individual planter in the Delta, owning 
and controlling twenty-one thousand acres of as fertile and highly developed 
land as is to be found. In 1916, with his stepson, B. R. Lombard, he bought the 
famous General Bedford Forrest plantation at Green Grove, consisting of some 
fourteen hundred acres, and in September, 1919, Mr. Smith and he closed 
what is probably the record deal for an individual, even in that land of big 
things, when he bought eight thousand acres of land for $1,600,000. Much of 
his twenty-one thousand acres is valued at $500 per acre. He is also a stock- 
holder and director in the Planters Bank and president of the Delta Grocery 
& Cotton Company, two of the strongest institutions in Clarksdale. No kindlier 
man than Mr. Smith ever lived — none more willing to help anyone in distress, 
to do a favor for a friend. No community ever had a better citizen, no locality 
a better neighbor. No man will strive harder than he to prevent a difficulty, but 
that he has courage to the nth degree has been shown upon every occasion after 
he has exhausted every means to have peace with honor. His honesty is doubted 
by no man who knows him and his sound judgment and wise counsel are relied 
upon greatly by his neighbors and associates. He has never sought office of 
any kind, but under the administration of Governor Noel, he served one term 
on the levee board, where the same principles that have characterized him and 
his family were applied to the public's business. He and Mrs. Minnie (Gaines) 
Lombard were married March 24, 1895. They have no children, but the palatial 
home in which they live at Hillhouse is the home for nine children of his 
deceased brother and of Mrs. Smith by a former marriage, and that home is 
just as wide open to his friends as was that of his father near Clinton, where 
the latchstring always hung on the outside. He is a member of the Clarksdale 
Outing Club, the Elks, the Clarksdale County Club and the Knights of Pythias, 
loved by all who know him and respected by the entire county. 



290 



OTL M. Summon* 

jILLIAM WALTER SIMMONS, manufacturer, coal operator 

W and merchant, Memphis, Tennessee, is a native of Alabama, 

rajj born in Courtland, December 7, 1865, the youngest son of 
H^ Alfred DeWoody and Martha Jane (Woolard) Simmons. A 
short time after losing his parents he came to Memphis in 1882, 
having been graduated from the Alabama High School in the 
June previous, and at the age of seventeen years immediately began his business 
career, engaging, first, in the cotton seed oil industry, afterwards the manufac- 
ture of barrels and cooperage material, becoming a stockholder in the Chickasaw 
Cooperage Company and having succeeded Mr. J. L. Well ford in the manage- 
ment of that concern. In 1901, however, he resigned his position with that 
company in order to enter his present business which has been his main life 
work — the manufacture and sale of ice and the mining and sale of coal. In 
1902 he organized the Broadway Coal & Ice Company and, as general manager 
of that company, built plants in Memphis where ice is manufactured and sold 
both in Memphis and the sorrounding territory. This company also supplies coal 
in large quantities for domestic and industrial purposes to Memphis and the 
Southern States. In 1906 Mr. Simmons organized the Broadway Coal Mining 
Company, and as president of that company procured large acreage of coal 
lands in Kentucky, built the town of Simmons, Kentucky, on the Illinois Central 
Railroad, and developed large coal mines where a trainload of Lewis Creek coal 
is mined daily and distributed through the wholesale coal department of the 
Broadway Coal & Ice Company, of Memphis. Mr. Simmons, like many other 
business men, does not devote all of his time to his individual affairs but is 
active in all civic, state and national issues tending to the betterment of mankind. 
During the World War when the army of workers behind the front was sorely 

taxed, his mines responded to the call of his government for the first requisite 

more coal. He was a liberal investor in all issues of government securities and 
contributed to all war causes and was actively engaged in all drives for the sale 
and solicitation of funds for them. Mr. Simmons has no political aspirations 
but a deep interest in all things pertaining to the welfare of his community and 
nation. He has been a member of the Methodist Church since childhood, is a 
Scottish Rite Mason of thirty-second degree, a member of the Memphis Mer- 
chants Exchange, of which he was president one term ; the Memphis Chamber 
of Commerce ; the Tennessee Club, and the Memphis Country Club. He and 
Miss Annie L. Mitchell, daughter of the late Dr. Edward Dana Mitchell and 
Verona (Stratton) Mitchell, were married August 11, 1898. They have three 
children : William Walter, Junior, now in Towne School of Science, University 
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia ; Elizabeth, in Ogontz School, Philadelphia ; and 
Edward Dana Simmons, in Memphis University School. 



295 



Capt W. ft. jaberftolbt 




VETERANS of the World War who spent so many months in 
training, can scarcely appreciate the experiences of Capt. 
Thomas Sylvanus Aderholdt in the Civil War. Born in 
Catawba County, North Carolina, August 22, 1846, the son of 
John and Annie Witherspoon Aderholdt, he was but seventeen 
years of age when he joined the thirty-second North Carolina 
regiment and reached Daniels' Brigade, Rhodes' division, Army of Virginia, one 
morning at 9 o'clock to enter battle of the Wilderness the next day. From then 
he missed only one of the battles which Gen. Lee fought, including the second 
engagements at Bell Grove and Cold Harbor; Winchester, and Fort Stevens. 
And no commander ever had better troops than those North Carolinians. They 
might be forced back, more often killed in the front ranks, but never demoral- 
ized, and the star of none shone brighter for courage than that of Capt. Ader- 
holdt. The year after the surrender, he left his native mountains for the level 
Mississippi Delta, working first as laborer for Capt. W. H. Stovall. In 1872, 
he moved to Friar Point, then the most important point for that section. It was 
before the days of railroads, and he engaged in the business of shipping by river, 
the only means, as land transportation through the wilderness, then trackless 
save for the trails of game and a few trappers, was out of the question. In 1875, 
he went into the railroad and levee contracting business, which soon became a 
tremendous undertaking with the construction of the Upper Yazoo levee line, the 
rebuilding of the lower line and the building of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley 
Railroad. There Capt. Aderholdt's ability to handle men and direct large affairs 
shone and for twenty years he was one of the leading contractors along the 
river. In 1899, he gave that strenuous life up for the quieter one of planting 
cotton in that magnificent land around Friar Point. In this he was most suc- 
cessful until the close of the season of 1919, when he sold out to his grandson 
and his son, practically retiring from active business, with ample means, the 
love of all who know him and the respect of the entire community. However, 
his associates prevailed upon him to accept the presidency of the Friar Point 
Compress Company, in which he is a stockholder, as he also is in the Coahoma 
Milling Company and other enterprises. He is a member of the Methodist 
Church and of all Masonic bodies except the Scottish Rite. He was mayor of 
Friar Point from 1878 to 1882 and chairman of the Board of Supervisors for 
sixteen years until he retired at the close of 1919. Capt. Aderholdt was married 
twice : first in 1868 to Miss Virginia Luker and after her death to Mrs. Laura 
B. Johnston in May, 1889. Having lost two children, he has seven living: Mrs. 
Lily Chism, Mrs. Clara Tittle, Mrs. Maggie Lowrance, Mrs. Alma Bond, Miss 
Gladys Aderholdt, Shirley Aderholdt and Thomas Sylvanus Aderholdt, Jr. 



296 





®7ct£^&/& 



&. M. portlock 




JAMUEL WALKER PORTLOCK, banker and financier, Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, comes from one of the oldest and most dis- 
tinguished families in the State. He is a great nephew of 
President James K. Polk, and a nephew of the late Judge 
Samuel P. Walker, who was unsurpassed by any man who ever 
lived in Memphis for ability, culture and refinement. He was 
born in Memphis, August 15, 1870, the son of Robert Griffith and Eleanor 
Wormley (Walker) Portlock. He attended the public schools of the City of 
Memphis and at the age of twenty-two years started in the line of business in 
which he has achieved such a signal success. In 1892, he entered the employ 
of the old Memphis National Bank as a stenographer and remained there until 
that institution was absorbed by the Merchants Trust Company. After that he 
went with the old City Bank when that was operating under a state charter with 
a capital stock of $100,000, his first connection being as assistant cashier. He 
was one of the active factors in the growth of this institution until it reached 
the point where it changed from a state to a national institution. He remained 
with that institution, aiding in its growth, until April, 1917, when he resigned 
to become the active vice-president of the Peoples Savings Bank & Trust Com- 
pany. This institution had an excellent board of directors, but for various 
reasons it had not grown with much rapidity in deposits, amounting at that time 
to $285,000. Mr. Portlock immediately put new life into it and from the time 
that he went there the deposits and influence of the bank grew by leaps and 
bounds. Within two years he had made such a success that the directors showed 
their appreciation of his ability and services by making him the president of the 
institution, which position he still holds. The deposits have grown from the 
$285,000 that he found when he went there to $1,300,000 in June, 1920, and with 
the directory which is behind Mr. Portlock in the bank it is growing with even 
greater speed. The bank now owns its own building on Madison Avenue, which 
is being remodeled into one of the handsomest banking houses in the city. 
Mr. Portlock is also a director in the Electric Supply Company of Memphis, and 
secretary-treasurer of the Limestone Products Company, a $100,000 corporation, 
with headquarters in Memphis and large holdings at Black Rock, Arkansas, 
where the finest of rock is quarried and crushed for road work, correction of 
soils and for making lime. The demand for this product, together with its 
cheap rail and water transportation charges, make it a most attractive propo- 
sition. Mr. Portlock and Miss Frances Slover were married April 26, 1911. 
They have two children, Frances Eleanor, born in 1916, and Samuel W., Jr., 
born in 1918. He is a member of Calvary Church, the Tennessee and Colonial 
clubs and Chamber of Commerce. 



301 



ft. 3L Heatfterman 




|AMUEL RICHARD LEATHERMAN, leading cotton factor 
and financier of Memphis and planter in the Mississippi Delta, 
was compelled to abbreviate his education at the Montgomery- 
Bell Academy, Nashville, Tennessee, because the lean years 
for the big Delta planters at that time was endangering the 
family estate. He threw himself into the breach, becoming 
associated with his uncle, the late Col. Richard F. Abbay at Commerce, Missis- 
sippi, and from that time to this the energy, judgment and integrity which he 
put into the business has made it grow until now it is second to none in this 
section in volume and to none anywhere in character. Mr. Leatherman was 
born at Commerce, Mississippi, the son of Dr. George W. Leatherman and Mary 
Susan Abbay Leatherman, November 30, 1869, and grew up in Tunica County 
familiar from his earliest days with the system of managing a cotton plantation. 
When he was called back from school to take the active management, under 
the general supervision of his uncle, of the property which his grandfather, 
Richard Abbay, Sr., of Nashville, had bought there in 1832, the total yield 
of the place was some two hundred bales of cotton. By opening new lands 
and acquiring more, he has increased the production of the place to more than 
ten times that amount, and in addition has acquired large holdings on the other 
side of the river in the St. Francis Basin of Arkansas. From the date that 
he took hold of the business in Mississippi, every bill was met promptly when it 
became due, and this habit, for habit it became, backed by the assets of the 
firm, gave it a credit which was ample for any expansion which it might desire 
to make. Mr. Leatherman, with his mother and Colonel Abbay, his uncle, 
organized the cotton factoring firm of Irwin-Leatherman Cotton Company 
in Memphis some years ago, and from the first the same integrity, honesty, 
industry and judgment that characterized Mr. Leatherman's career at Com- 
merce counted, and the business has steadily grown to be one of the best on 
Front Street. Originally its secretary and treasurer, he recently succeeded 
Colonel Abbay as its president. He and his mother now are sole owners of the 
firm of Abbay & Leatherman at Commerce, Mississippi, but continue the busi- 
ness under the old firm name, under which he recouped the wavering family 
fortune and laid the foundation for his own. Mr. Leatherman and Miss Ethel 
Irwin, daughter of the late Colonel Robert S. Irwin of Tunica, Mississippi, were 
married December 15, 1896. The union has been blessed by six children: Miss 
Mary Abbay, to whom Lieut. Hugh Fontaine surrendered after having won 
the aviation title of "ace" over the battle lines in France, where he brought 
down four German planes; Miss Anne Irwin; Robert Irwin: Samuel 
Richard, Jr.; William Abbay, and Richard Abbay, deceased. The handsome 
family residence on Union Avenue in Memphis, is the scene of many delightful 
social affairs. 



302 













M^^I^^B 




H 








^6^ Jl 


Jt\) 






^^ 








'i^y^c -^4^792^^^ ^ ^r 



laugfjter Campbell 




NE hundred and forty-two dollars in cash, plus 100 per cent 
"pep," 100 per cent faith in his adopted country, and 100 per 
cent honesty enabled William Slaughter Campbell in twenty- 
eight years to become one of the leading merchants in Clarks- 
dale, Mississippi, and one of the largest planters in the Upper 
Yazoo Delta. Born in Clinton, Louisiana, on June 7, 1863, 
the son of Mr. James A. and Mrs. Mary S. Campbell, he was educated at 
Magruder College, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Kenmore High School, Amherst, 
Virginia. At the age of twenty years, he began business as office man in the 
store of his father at Port Hudson, Louisiana, and remained there until 1890, 
when he moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the mercantile business which 
his father opened there. Two years later, with $142 in cash, he started in busi- 
ness for himself as a merchant and to this business soon began adding that of 
planting. He had faith in the Coahoma County lands, knew the best when he 
saw it and now possesses nearly five thousand acres of the best that there is to 
be had and lying beautifully. The panics of 1897 and 1907 hit Mr. Campbell 
hard as it did almost all of the other business men and planters in the Delta 
and the lean year of 1911 was one that tried the souls of the strongest of 
men; but he was strong enough to weather all three of these storms. His 
resolute courage stood him in good stead and he fought the financial battles 
to a successful finish, winning a success of which any man may well be justly 
proud. He has acquired a great deal of city property in Clarksdale which has 
enhanced in value at a rate which is astounding, and is heavily interested in 
many of the best concerns in the Delta, notably the Planters Bank in which he 
is a director, the Planters Oil Works, the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company and 
the Clarksdale Machinery Company. But his vision, clear as it ever has been 
as to the ultimate values in the Delta, has not been confined to that section. 
He has many and varied outside investments, among them being stock in the 
Marland Refining Company, of Ponca City, Oklahoma; in the Texas Oil Com- 
pany; in the Mobile Tractor Company, of Mobile, Alabama; in the Missouri 
Life Insurance Company; the Gulf port Life Insurance Company, and the 
New World Life Insurance Company. Mr. Campbell and Miss Carolyn Wild- 
berger were married in Clarksdale on April 9, 1902, and have two girls, Eliza- 
beth Campbell and Mary Campbell. He is a member of the Catholic Church, 
of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks No. 977, of the Clarksdale 
Country Club, of the Outing Club and of the Tennessee Club of Memphis. His 
genial disposition, affectionate manner and charming personality have made him 
a wide circle of loving friends; while his honesty, integrity and capacity have 
given him a business standing second to none ; still to all he is the "Slaughter" 
that he was when he was on the lower rungs of the ladder. 



307 



i. <&. 3Bean 




HEN Leonidas Guy Dean moved to Shaw, Mississippi, it was 
just a wide place in the road having a saloon at either end 
and one in the middle, with two small general stores sand- 
wiched in between them, and the general stores did very little 
of the business of the settlement. No one has been a greater 
factor than he in transforming it into the beautiful, wealthy 
and progressive city that it now is. Mr. Dean is a native Mississippian, having 
been born in Senatobia, August 2, 1866, the son of David L. and Martha 
Elizabeth Dean. He went to the high school at Senatobia and at the age of 
fourteen years he began his business career as shipping clerk for a wholesale 
furniture house in Memphis. After four years at this work he joined his 
father as a member of the furniture firm of D. L. Dean & Son at Senatobia, 
and two years later they opened a branch house at Coldwater, of which he had 
charge. In 1888 Mr. Dean moved to the Delta, going into the livestock business 
for himself at Leland, but the following year, he moved to Shaw, opening a 
mercantile house under the firm name of L. G. Dean, at the same time beginning 
to buy land and plant cotton. He has expanded so rapidly in that line that 
now the Dean Plantation comprises eight thousand acres of the beautiful and 
fertile land about Shaw, while his leaseholdings aggregate six thousand more. 
He also owns sixteen hundred acres of magnificent Arkansas land near the pro- 
gressive city of Earl. He has six gins through which pass about half of the 
cotton that comes to the market at Shaw, and that is in the heart of the best long 
staple district in the world. But Mr. Dean has not devoted all of his time and 
attention to his own fortunes. He realized that after the levees, the greatest 
need of the Delta soils was drainage for the inside waters, and he took such 
an active part in that work that he was made president of the Shaw Drainage 
District, which has either improved or made possible the cultivation of some 
forty thousand acres of land, now the equal of any in the world. Next in 
economic needs of the Delta come roads over which its ample products can be 
moved to market. Again he took the lead, and plans now are completed by 
which every road in the district will have been surfaced with gravel by the end 
of the year. Men of Mr. Dean's calibre realized that the negro of today would 
not be available as labor in the Southern plantations under the conditions of 
yesterday, and he was a leader in building a $50,000 school for them. He is 
president of the board of trustees which is building a $200,000 consolidated 
school now for white children. Aside from varied financial interests at home, 
he is a director in the Texas-Eagle Producing & Refining Company of Fort 
Worth. He made an excellent sheriff for four years of Bolivar County. Mr. Dean 
and Miss Eugenia C. Walker were married August 14, 1892. Their children are 
Guy W., Wawice Eugenia and Miss Lonnie G. Dean. 



308 




Pf.M J^^r 



. $. Mtk 




ILLIAM HENRY DICK, for many years one of the most 
active men for every good movement in Tallahatchie County, 
Mississippi, who recently moved from Philipp to Memphis, 
Tennessee, is a native of Rock Island, Illinois, where he was 
born February 19, 1872. He attended the common schools 
^7) from 1880 to 1885 and spent the next four years in the high 
school at home. In the spring of 1890, he took a four-months' course in a busi- 
ness college and in May of that year went with the lumber firm of Meikljohn & 
Hatten at Manawa, Wisconsin, as a bookkeeper. Two years later he and 
Mr. W. H. Hatten of that firm formed an association which has endured to this 
day and developed into one of the big lumber concerns of the country. Their first 
partnership was formed in the spring of 1892, to do a general wholesale lumber 
business at Manawa. Mr. Dick prospered in this line until in 1896 he was able to 
buy an interest in the Meikljohn & Hatten Lumber Company, and was chosen sec- 
retary and manager of the business at New London, Wisconsin. In 1907, Mr. Hat- 
ten and he organized the Tallahatchie Lumber Company, Mr. Hatten being the 
president of the concern and Mr. Dick the vice-president in active charge of 
the business. He bought for the company a large tract of land in Tallahatchie 
County, Mississippi, then considered by most of the neighboring planters as 
mere waste land covered with timber which could not be handled. Mr. Dick 
erected a large and thoroughly modern mill at Philipp. He built his own rail- 
roads out into the timber from the tracks of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley 
Railroad, took the logs to Philipp and there manufactured lumber surpassed 
by no mill. He had the reputation of being able to do this at less cost per 
thousand feet than any other mill in the country. The average early northern 
lumberman coming to the Delta was a reactionary from fear of higher taxes, 
but Mr. Dick from the time that he landed in Tallahatchie County was one 
of the most progressive citizens in it, no matter whether the proposed work 
benefitted his land directly or not. There is probably no country road in the 
Mid-South superior to that which Tallahatchie County has built to connect the 
Coahoma and Leflore county systems. It is miles from Mr. Dick's land, but 
no man in the county worked harder for the organization of the district and 
the most advantageous sale of the bonds than he. He had been equally as active 
for every drainage movement ever proposed. He was a pioneer among the big 
lumbermen in the clearing of land. Just as soon as he got the timber off, he 
began to reduce the land to a state of cultivation, and now the company owns 
some magnificent plantations on the high banks of Tippo. Mr. Dick is a 
member of Tripoli Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., Wisconsin Consistory. He 
and Miss Susa Blackwood were married June 29, 1898. Their children are 
Misses Helen, Marjorie and Naomi. 



313 



9. ft. Mfjtte 




OSSEY HURDLE WHITE began work in Memphis as a lad 
thirty-four years ago. Now he is the president and active 
head of seven firms which do an annual business of nearly 
six and a half million dollars per year. Mr. White was born 
in Waverly, Tennessee, May 2. 1869, the son of Dossey Hurdle 
and Sarah Ann (Phillips) White. He was educated in the 
public schools of Hardin County, finishing his course with one year in Hardin 
College at Savannah, Tennessee. In January, 1886, he came to Memphis and 
went to work for the Langstaff Hardware Company at the rate of $2.50 per 
week. But he had brought with him to Memphis a high degree of energy, an 
ambition to go to the front, sterling integrity and absolute honesty. Before he 
was of legal age, he had risen to the point where Mr. A. D. Langstaff sent him 
out on the road as a traveling salesman. He remained in that work for five 
years and then went with the stronger firm of the Simmons Hardware Company 
of St. Louis, Missouri. After ten years of service with the Simmons Hardware 
Company he realized that he was able to handle big propositions of his own 
and had accumulated enough to go into business. On February 1, 1904, he 
bought out the wholesale grocery business of A. B. Treadwell & Sons and began 
the mercantile career in which he has been conspicuous ever since. On the 
first of February that year he organized the White-Wilson-Drew Company, 
which is still the firm name of the main business and which for years has been 
one of the most progressive and active wholesale grocery houses in the South. 
Mr. White's vision was clearer than that of probably any other Memphian as 
to the possibilities of the fertile country on the other side of the Mississippi 
River and above the city, and as his Memphis business became stronger he 
began establishing stores up there. Now in addition to being president of the 
White-Wilson-Drew Company, Memphis, he is president of the White-Dorroh 
Grocery Company, wholesale grocers at Sikeston, Missouri, the Farmers Supply 
Company, retail dealers, in the same city: the Caruthersville Hardware Com- 
pany, and the White-Dorroh Mercantile Company at Caruthersville, Missouri ; 
and the Oberst Hardware Company of Blytheville, Arkansas. In addition he 
formed and is president of the Continental Oil Company of Memphis, wholesale 
distributors of lubricating oils, gasoline and kerosene. All of these houses have 
been conducted since their organization with such energy, efficiency and honesty 
that they all are leader* in their respective locations. Mr. White is a member 
of the board of directors of the Guaranty Bank & Trust Company, one of 
Memphis' strongest banks with $7,000,000 resources, and is also a member of the 
Chamber of Commerce. He has never sought or held any political office. 
Mr. White and Miss Martha Obenchain Hicks were married December 12, 1893. 
They have one child, Miss Dorothy Drew White. 



314 




°A fxf M-^jt 



3L ft. Barnes; 




EN HARRISON GAINES, planter, merchant, ginner, cotton 
buyer, mayor and capitalist, although young in years, is the 
patriarch of Boyle, Mississippi, in that he has lived there 
longer than any other man. Yet Boyle is an important city and 
Mr. Gaines was some thirty years of age when he went to 
live where Boyle now is. What better proof can be had of 
the equation that the wonderful fertility of the Mississippi Delta soil, plus 
brains, industry and integrity equals rapid wealth? Mr. Gaines is a native of 
Kentucky, having been born November 11, 1867, in Warren County, the son 
of George Morton and Sarah Gaines. He received a common school education 
and then went to Ogden College at Bowling Green. At the age of eighteen years, 
he went to work for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad as a telegraph operator 
at Birmingham, Alabama. After having become an expert telegrapher, he 
quit the railroad and followed his profession all over the country, even as far 
away as the City of Mexico. But in all of these travels, he saw no land like 
that of the Mid-South, and the year 1893 found him in the coal business in 
Memphis. This line was too narrow for his vigor and two years later he 
went with Maj. G. W. McGinnis, then land agent for the Illinois Central and 
Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroads and the greatest of the early prophets 
on the future of the Mississippi Delta. Mr. Gaines caught his chief's infection 
and the more he saw of the Delta the more he became obsessed with the desire 
to possess a portion of it. Few had foresight enough at that time to realize that 
the wet, flat lands where Boyle now stands would increase ten thousand per 
cent in value in twenty years, but he bought land there at $3 per acre, which, 
in 1919, sold for $300. Boyle then was wild in its vegetation, in the animal 
life of its forests and in the manners of its citizenship, and dreary in its vast 
areas of water standing stagnant. He was a prime factor in the metamorphosis 
from then until now. He owns and controls nearly eight thousand acres of land 
of which nearly six thousand are in cultivation. His land holdings include 
thirty-six hundred acres in Lake County, Tennessee, the only Delta County in 
the State. As the first president of the Bolivar County drainage district, it 
was largely through his energy that the eighty-five miles of canals were dug 
which improved 140,000 acres of land. In 1915 Boyle realized that it needed 
artesian water, but could not sell her bonds. Mr. Gaines took the entire issue. 
He became mayor solely to improve the city, and concrete walks replaced the 
buckshot quagmire. Mr. Gaines is president of the Bolivar Compress Company 
of Cleveland, and director and stockholder in many other industrial and finan- 
cial enterprises. He married Miss Nettie Francis, October 21, 1889. They 
have two sons, Stanley F. and Rowland R. 



320 



J. W. Sainton 




| ESSE THOMAS HINTON, Memphis, Tennessee, president 
and general manager of J. T. Hinton & Son, funeral directors, 
was born in Poplar Plains in Fleming County, Kentucky, on 
March 24, 1865, the son of Thomas Jefferson and Sarah Ann 
(Fitch) Hinton. It was a sturdy stock from which he came, 
honest and upright in their dealings with their neighbor, coura- 
geous and highminded in their obligations as citizens and faithful to the convic- 
tions of their fathers. He went to the public schools, meanwhile working with 
his father in the bridge building business. In 1888 he learned through a travel- 
ing man, who did business with his father, that a position was open with 
P. M. Stanley, at that time a leading undertaker of Memphis. Mr. Hinton 
applied for the job and got it. He started at $50 a month. His attention to 
every duty and the splendid devotion with which he went about his work, 
carried him forward. Two years later the name of the firm was changed to 
Stanley & Hinton. In 1892 Mr. Hinton, who had rapidly surged to the front in 
the business, left the firm and went with J. F. Hoist & Brother. He gave to 
this firm ten years of efficiency and devotion to duty. In 1902 the firm became 
Hoist Bros. & Hinton, and so continued until 1913 when Mr. Hinton bought 
out the interest of Mr. J. F. Hoist and the firm became J. T. Hinton & Son. 
This firm is now as it has been since it was founded nearly eighty years ago 
the leading undertaking firm in the Mid-South. Mr. Hinton, as a young man 
in the employ of J. F. Hoist & Brother, drove the first ambulance that was ever 
seen on the streets of Memphis. Now the firm operates three motor ambulances, 
splendidly equipped with every convenience. One of them, lately added to the 
ambulance department, is the finest ambulance in the world. The firm is delight- 
fully located in the beautifully furnished and splendidly equipped funeral home 
at 1150 Union Avenue. The firm also owns the Hoist Building at 173 Union 
Avenue which, for so many years was the home of the business, and which is 
still used to take care of its large business. Mr. Hinton was married December 
31, 1891, to Miss Lida Balzelle Burgess, also of Fleming County, Kentucky. 
Mrs. Hinton is one of Memphis' talented and accomplished women. He is a 
member of the Colonial Country Club, Memphis Rotary Club and Chamber of 
Commerce. Though never desiring political office Mr. Hinton always takes a 
deep interest in the ways of politicians, and is a sterling Democrat. He is 
an officer of the Linden Avenue Christian Church. For many years the Hintons 
lived on Eastmoreland Avenue. Of late years they have lived at the Hotel 
Chisca. Mr. Hinton has two children, Mrs. Mary Louise Hinton Clark, and 
Captain Frayser Hinton, vice-president of the firm, a veteran of the World War 
and one of the city's promising young business men. 



325 



A. Jffl. femes 




iROBABLY the most successful of the younger planters on the 
Tallahatchie River in Mississippi is Selwyn Marshall Jones 
of Glendora, and no man on the river has put more energy into 
his business than he has. Mr. Jones was born in Torrance, 
Mississippi, July 11, 1883, the son of Selwyn Marshall and 
Rolena Ward (Eggleston) Jones. He was educated in the 
public schools of Grenada, and spent two years in Mississippi College at Clinton, 
and the same number of years in the University of Mississippi. At the age 
of sixteen years he went to work as a turn-row rider on the plantation of 
R. Dailey at Torrance. He spent two years working for Mr. Dailey and then 
sought the wider fields afforded by the Mississippi Delta. His uncle, R. Lewis 
Jones, was then one of the leading planters along Tallahatchie River. The 
lad worked for his uncle until he was twenty-one years of age. Then he 
inherited seven hundred and sixty acres of land where Black Bayou empties 
into the river and took active charge of it. Well equipped by breeding, educa- 
tion, training and experience, possessed of a physique which seemed proof' 
against fatigue, a sincere ambition to go to the top of the ladder — all of this 
dominated by sterling honesty — he put all that was in him into his manage- 
ment of the plantation. It showed from the first day that he took charge and 
from the first the business prospered. The Mississippi Delta, with clearing, 
fencing and draining during the workable days even when the crops do not 
require attention, probably is the busiest place in the United States. The 
drone receives about the same consideration that he does in the hive of bees 
when the honey flow is light. And Mr. Jones' plantation was the busiest of the 
busy. But if he required much of his men and mules, he gave more of himself. 
It was never "Go ahead," but "Come on" for he was ever in the lead, and 
every one on the place caught the contagion of his terrible energy. He ran the 
place alone for three years, when he and Mr. Boykin M. Perkins formed the 
firm of Jones & Perkins, which enjoyed five years of prosperity. Mr. Jones 
then bought Mr. Perkins out and since that time has run the business alone. 
Since the beginning of his career in the Delta, Mr. Jones has had great faith 
in it and has been a rapid buyer of land until he now owns ten thousand acres, 
located both in the Delta and at his old home near Torrance, where he has a 
large stock farm. He is a director in the Greenwood Bank & Trust Company, 
and the Henderson-Baird Hardware Company of Greenwood, and the M inter 
City Oil Company, and a stockholder in the Bank of Tallahatchie at Sumner 
and the Planters Bank at Clarksdale. As county supervisor, he was active in 
giving Tallahatchie County her first gravel roads. He and Miss Mary Winter 
Upshaw were married November 1, 1912. They have two children, Selwyn 
Marshall, Jr., and Mary Upshaw Jones. 



326 




^^p^^^(jp<^. 



. C. Xajme 



^AHLON EASROM LAYNE, Memphis, Tennessee, head of 
the Layne & Bowler Company, the world's largest developer 

M7j|y of underground water supplies, was born July 31, 1865, on 
V§i) a farm between Chillicothe and Ottumwa, Iowa, the son of 
Franklin Mortimer and Augusta Virginia (Xewcome) Layne. 
The family left Iowa in December, 1872, and located near 
Hurley, South Dakota, where Mr. Layne spent his youth, getting his education 
in the local schools there until he was about nineteen years of age. He was at 
the age of seventeen years when he did his first work in the line, after nearly 
forty years in which he has achieved such marked success and of which he 
says, "I truly believe that separation of oil and gas from Nature's storehouse, 
also developing and commercializing the underground flows ( Nature's balance 
wheel between rain periods) is the greatest undeveloped piece of engineering 
work now before the thinking world." His income from the first job was one 
dollar per day wages. Small as this was, the work had a fascination for him, and 
he stuck to the line, even though he then probably did not dream that he 
would evolve a system which would become international in its use, and would 
make lands which the geographies of his day described as hopeless deserts bloom 
now like the Antilles. At ten days after having reached his majority, Mr. Layne 
married and within less than six months induced his father-in-law to mortgage 
three cows with which to buy a one-horse-power well-digging rig for $89. 
He made good, paid oft" the debt at 12 per cent interest and the following year 
got a two-horse rig. From the first his guarantee was "No Water, No Pay" 
and that is the guarantee today of the company. His industry, ingenuity and 
sterling integrity went into the business from the start and has remained in 
it every day. It grew until he increased his outfit to a six-horse rig and then 
to steam power, from the beginning making many useful inventions. For eleven 
years he sunk wells in the neighboring states and during the spring of 1901, 
he went to Texas, saw the wonderful possibilities in the southern portion of 
the State, and later installed a big plant at Houston to take advantage of them 
and incidentally add many fold to the value of the lands. A factory was also 
installed in Los Angeles, California, which is a benefactor to the arid lands 
of the extreme Southwest. In 1913 the Layne & Bowler Company bought 
the plant of the Allen Engineering Company in Memphis, overhauled and 
enlarged it to where it is one of the most efficient factories in the entire South. 
Beside these three factories, the company has ten branches and sales offices 
and has installed over 7,000 pumping stations in the United States and ten 
foreign lands. Mr. Layne and Miss Bertha Adella Basye were married August 
10. 1886. They have four sons, Lewis M., Leslie A., Lloyd F. and Ollyn A. 
Layne. Mr. Layne is a member of the Methodist Church. 



331 



Br. OTL J, Hatv 




|R. WALTER JEFFERSON LACY, Lyon, Mississippi, who 
owns and lives on the Ankticook plantation, near Clarksdale, 
of twelve hundred acres, was born March 24, 1877, in DeSoto 
Parish, Louisiana, the son of Elijah Wimbuck and Frances 
(Scott) Lacy. In the early period of his life he was the 
victim of rheumatism to a degree that deprived him of attend- 
ing school, and was educated by private tutors. Later he entered the Kansas 
City Veterinary College, was graduated in 1906. At the time the United States 
Bureau of Animal Industry was called on to expand to meet the present meat 
inspection law, and control the diseases of animals, he entered this service, 
it having exceptional educational advantages, being stationed first in the Kansas 
City Stock Yards, thence to Austin, Minnesota ; Wichita and Parsons, Kansas, 
two years at Parsons, having jurisdiction over stock entering the grazing lands 
of the Osage Indian reservation, then the land of the blanket Indian, now a 
famous oil region ; thence to Omaha and Nebraska City, Nebraska ; thence to 
St. Joseph, Missouri, and thence to Nashville, Tennessee. Out of the latter 
station he was assigned to Coahoma and Tunica counties, Mississippi, in the 
spring of 1910. Prior to taking up the veterinary profession, he was engaged 
in the horse and mule business, operating five years in Illinois, Iowa and Mis- 
souri. Doctor Lacy thought he had seen the finest of the nations farm lands, 
in his former locations, and the successful corn belt farmer was the acme of 
agricultural success, but when Clarksdale was made his headquarters, and he 
had covered his territory, he realized there was the spot of fertility and the 
land of opportunity. After eighteen months organizing and directing the 
bureau's work there he was transferred to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and was 
returned to Clarksdale in 1912 to close up the bureau's work. He then resigned, 
rather than leave the Delta. He bought a half interest with Mr. E. J. Mullens 
in twelve hundred acres of semi-developed land, operating as the firm of 
Mullens & Lacy, until 1920, six hundred of which came to him in the dissolu- 
tion of the firm, and formed the nucleus of his present holdings. The other 
was added by timely purchases of surrounding lands. He owns, with Mr. T. C. 
Oberst, Swan Lake plantation of sixteen hundred acres, adjoining his. Ankti- 
cook is Indian for "grape-vine" telegraph. Here all details are under his 
personal direction and under his guiding hand it is the show place for Coahoma 
County, unsurpassed by any for degree of development and character of 
improvements. For several years he has paralleled the cotton plantings of the 
Stoneville Experiment Station, and also co-operates with plant specialists of 
other areas. He is a stockholder in the Planters Bank, Clarksdale, Delta Grocery 
& Cotton Company, Clarksdale, and Memphis Packing Corporation. He was 
married to Miss Birdie Mullens, in Clarksdale, October 11, 1911. His favorite 
mode of travel is by motor and he will vary widely from the usual course of 
travel to visit a farm of reported excellence, a spot of historical importance or 
scenic splendor. 

332 





•^^^g^ 




JuzZ^^*~*^c-ys 



3. S. Jfflas&ep 




iOHN THOMAS MASSEY, manager of the states of Ten- 
nessee and Arkansas for the Standard Oil Company of Louis- 
iana, has attained to that important position with the biggest 
business organization in the world, solely in pursuance of its 
policy of putting the most efficient men in the high executive 
positions. Mr. Massey was born in Lafayette County, Mis- 
sissippi, near Oxford, November 5, 1882, the son of William C. and Mary E. 
Massey. At the age of nineteen years he began his career as stenographer for 
the Illinois Central and Gulf & Ship Island railroads and remained with them 
until 1903. Later that year he was with the Southern Car & Foundry Company 
at Anniston, Alabama, and with the Atlantic & Birmingham Railroad in the 
same capacity. Seeking a broader field where there would be greater opportunity 
for the talents which he possessed, Mr. Massey came to Memphis and on 
January 1, 1904, entered the office of the Standard Oil Company of Kentucky 
as stenographer. He was promoted to chief clerk and remained with that 
company until its properties in Tennessee were purchased by the Standard Oil 
Company of Louisiana. Mr. Massey continued with the Standard Oil Company 
of Louisiana in the same capacity for some time, but Mr. C. O. Scholder, then 
manager of the local office, saw that everything that Mr. Massey did had been 
well done and that he possessed initiative. Big businesses are ever in need of 
good men and Mr. Scholder promoted Mr. Massey to assistant manager, which 
position he filled until Mr. Scholder was promoted to the position of vice-presi- 
dent of the company with headquarters in New Orleans, Louisiana, in charge of 
the sales department and the business of the company in a number of southern 
states, including Tennessee and Arkansas. Knowing Mr. Massey's thorough 
qualifications for the head of the Memphis office, Mr. Scholder made him his 
successor. He is recognized as one of the most systematic business men of the 
city, and one of the most efficient managers of the Standard Oil Company in 
this section. Ever since Mr. Massey became the chief clerk in the local office 
of the Standard Oil Company, that office has been recognized as one of the 
best in the city in which to work. While it is true that a full day's work had 
to be done and done correctly, that office was a pioneer locally in reducing the 
hours for employees, in giving them half holidays on Saturdays, in paying good 
salaries, in making promotions based solely upon merit, and in having the 
most convenient and sanitary conditions for all of the office force. Mr. Massey 
has taken no active part in politics, but is a member of the Rotary Club, the 
Chamber of Commerce and the Colonial Country Club, and active in every move- 
ment for a better Memphis. He and Miss Nannie Louise Driver were married 
December 28, 1902, and have one child, a daughter. 



337 



<&. Jf. &cf)lecf)t 




F. SCHLECHT came to Memphis in 1915 with the agency 
for the Dodge Brothers motor car and a degree of energy 
which enabled him to build up a business employing more 
than one hundred men and conceded by executives of big 
concerns, and automobile sales managers to be the most com- 
plete and efficient, and to have the best arrangement of any 
similar concern in the South and the equal of any in the United States — a 
business establishment aristocratic in its order and cleanliness and democratic 
in that every one is treated alike. The price of a Dodge car is the same to 
every customer, and no one has ever claimed the standing offer of a car 
free to any man who can show that another got one more cheaply than the 
list price, or one ordered after his. The system, energy and judgment that 
Mr. Schlecht has put into the business is attested by the fact that he had 
on file at one time five hundred orders, which the factory had been unable 
to fill. In the management of his business, Mr. Schlecht has evolved a plan 
which secures maximum results in the way of efficiency from each employe 
at the same time developing his loyalty and attracting his affection. Each 
week he meets with the heads of all of the departments, reviewing the past 
week and deciding on the procedure for the next week. A question box is 
maintained where each employe is urged to make suggestions. Any of these 
that look good to the heads of departments are tried out for sixty days and 
if at the end of that time they prove of value, the employe who made it is 
paid for the idea. At the end of each year the employes are Mr. Schlecht's 
guests at a banquet, where they receive bonuses. The result of this and con- 
stant good treatment has been no shortage of labor, even during the severest 
war times. At the 1918 banquet every employe who attended the 1917 banquet 
was present save those who had entered the service and one w'ho had died. 
Although Mr. Schlecht came to Memphis in 1915, not knowing a man nor 
the name of a street, he headed a team in the 1919-membership drive of the 
Chamber of Commerce which won the silver cup for having secured most 
members and every day of the drive, except one, he was the leader. He was 
then named chairman of the chamber's entertainment committee, and arranged 
the elaborate affairs for General Pershing and others of lesser fame, together 
with having completed for President and Mrs. Wilson what the secret service 
men said was the most complete plan made for that trip. He is appreciated 
by the trade most for having organized the Memphis Automobile Dealers' 
Association, of which he is vice-president. He is also president of the Kiwanis 
Club and a member of the Colonial Country Club. Gustave Frederich Schlecht 
was born in St. Louis, Missouri, October 15, 1880, and educated there, the 
son of Charles and Louisa Schlecht. He and Miss Matilda Kreidler married 
June 12, 1903. They have one child, Richard W. 



338 




<%&£ 




m. H. proton 





OBERT LEE BROWN. Memphis, Tennessee, one of the lead- 
ing coal mine operators of the Mid-South, was born Decem- 
Rtfo\ ber 30, 1869, in Obion, Tennessee, the son of Calvin S. and 
@v Margaret Virginia (Martin) Brown. He was educated in 
the grammar and high schools of Obion and then took the 
course in Professor William R. Moore's Training School at 
Glass, Tennessee. From these he went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, 
Tennessee, where he took first the literary course and then the law course, 
completing the latter in 1892 with the degree of bachelor of law. However, 
active business life appealed to Mr. Brown stronger than did the profession 
of law, and in September of the year in which he was graduated, he came 
to Memphis and entered the coal business, in which line he has remained ever 
since and in which he has gone to the top. As the head of the Brown Coal 
Company he was for the first twenty years of his business career one of the 
leading retailers of the city, but in 1912 he retired from the retail business so 
far as Memphis was concerned. In the meanwhile he had acquired and 
operated coal mines in Alabama, and in 1905 he began the acquisition of mines 
in Western Kentucky. He sold his Alabama interests and concentrated in 
Kentucky. In the meanwhile he had also developed into one of the best coal 
operators in the United States. He put into coal mining operations a degree 
of energy and skill which sent their output up the high mark, and into the 
sale of the product of the mines an efficiency, integrity and ability which 
made the business highly remunerative. Now he is the head of four large 
Western Kentucky coal mining companies, three of which are located on the 
lines of the Illinois Central Railroad and one of which is on the Louisville & 
Nashville Railroad. As a producer of coal, his companies are the fourth 
largest in that section of the state. In addition to being president of the 
Brown Coal Company, he is also president of the Gibraltar Coal Mining Com- 
pany and of the Mercer Coal Company. He also operates sales offices and 
coal yards in Louisville, Kentucky, on a large scale, having bought from Gen- 
eral T. Coleman Dupont the business there in that line of the Central Coal & 
Iron Company. Mr. Brown has always been active for every movement for 
the improvement of Memphis. He led in the organization of the old City 
Bank, now the National City Bank, and was the first president of that institu- 
tion. Later he sold his stock in that bank and for a long time has been a direct- 
tor in the First National Bank. He has also long been interested in farming, 
owning and operating several of the best farms in this section. He is a mem- 
ber of the Memphis Country Club, the Tennessee Club and the Chamber of 
Commerce. Mr. Brown and Miss Ella May Starrett were married February 
5, 1896. They have one child : Miss Amy A., now Mrs. George Swiggart Miles. 



343 



ft. a. Jflorrision 




A. MORRISON, banker, planter and lumber manufacturer, 
Earle, Arkansas, was born in Vevay, Indiana, March 5, 1877, 
the son of B. S. and Julia I. Morrison. After having received 
a common school education he decided to cast his lot with 
the progressive section of the country near Memphis, where 
he has prospered greatly and where he has been an active 
factor in the development of his adopted home. He settled at Earle when 
there was nothing in the location of soil or resources of that site to indicate 
that it had a right to be any better than a number of other small cities in the 
St. Francis Basin. He and Judge John F. Rhodes, long a leading figure in 
the material and political welfare of Crittenden County, formed a connection 
in the real estate and land abstract business. They soon became the largest 
dealers in land in that section of the State. Mr. Morrison had enough vision 
to realize that the fertile level lands of the Basin could not long remain low 
in price like they were at that time in comparison with the other lands of the 
United States which were not nearly so productive. He and Judge Rhodes 
were large buyers of wild land on their own account. Much of this they held 
for a short time and sold at a handsome profit. Many tracts were developed 
by them to some extent and then sold. Other tracts they sub-divided and sold 
in small tracts so as to hasten the settlement of the country and in a number 
of cases they laid the open land oft" in town lots. Their abstract business 
also grew to a large size. Mr. Morrison and a few other men of his type — 
men who essentially are doers and not mere talkers — happened to settle in 
Earle. With them it was naturally a matter of co-operation for the good of 
the community and it was but a short time until the small town began to feel 
the effect of their presence. The net result of their activity was the rapid 
growth of the town into a city which for some years has been generally con- 
sidered the best and most active city in the St. Francis Basin, setting the 
example and pace for all of the others in all lines of progress and civic activity. 
The spirit of the city enthused the surrounding country and they taxed them- 
selves heavily for good roads into Earle from all points of the compass. In 
the meantime, Mr. Morrison had acquired some of the best of the fine alluvial 
lands in that section of the basin and became one of the most substantial 
planters of cotton. He is also heavily interested in valuable timber lands in 
Louisiana. For two years following 1911, Mr. Morrison was secretary of the 
St. Francis Levee Board, and he is vice-president and executive officer of the 
Bank of Commerce at Earle, the strongest financial institution in his section 
of the State. Mr. Morrison and Miss Lillie Hogin were married ill 1898. 
Their children are, Rebecca A., and Hamp A. Morrison. 



344 




^^>Aj^aj\jc^C>^ 




aa^^^dc^ 



a. J. JHosielep 




HERE is no greater hustler in Coahoma County, Mississippi, 
than Arthur Jenkins Moseley. Born in Panola County, Missis- 
sippi, the son of Dr. Hillery and Martha J. Moseley, he went 
to work at ten years of age in a drugstore but after fifteen 
years of this work, he sought the more strenuous life of the 
Delta, then just beginning its period of astounding growth, 
in which he took a most active part. For some twelve years he had charge 
of the large planting and mercantile interests of Mrs. L. E. Bobo at Lyon, then 
he engaged in planting on his own account. No man, even in the Delta at that 
time where the nervous strain was heavy, ever put more steam pressure behind 
his work than did Mr. Moseley. It showed instantly and the business grew 
in volume and income from the start and Mr. Moseley had soon acquired a 
fortune, which still is growing and which is enjoyed by his host of friends 
as much as by himself. So bright is his disposition and so warm is his affec- 
tion for his fellowman that he would be happy in their company if they were 
prosperous while he was in adversity, and miserable if he alone possessed all 
of the good things in life. Mr. Moseley thinks that Coahoma County is the 
finest county in the world, not only in which to live but also in which to invest, 
and all of his business connections are there. In addition to his planting 
affairs, he is a stockholder and director in the Planters Bank, the Clarksdale 
Savings Bank, the Johnson-Harlow Lumber Company, the Clarksdale Machinery 
Company, the Peoples Compress Company, the Clarksdale Trust Company, and 
president of the Coahoma County Milling Company, vice-president of the Delta 
Grocery & Cotton Company, doing a tremendous wholesale grocery and cotton 
factor business, and vice-president of the Delta Hardware & Implement Com- 
pany, wholesalers in both of those lines. When Uncle Sam went into the 
war, he gave his only son, Albert J., who was accidentally killed just after 
receiving his discharge. Mr. Moseley went into "high" in all of the loan cam- 
paigns. He was county chairman for the first Liberty loan drive and district 
chairman in all of the others for Coahoma, Tunica, Bolivar, Washington and 
Humphreys counties. In each drive his territory went over the top 100 per 
cent, and Coahoma "put it over" larger than any other county in the state. 
Mr. Moseley and Miss Hettie Bobo were married February 27, 1895, and have 
only one living child, Miss Louise. With no taste for office-seeking, Mr. Moseley 
served one term as a county supervisor. He is a member of the Chamber of 
Commerce, of the Clarksdale Country Club and the Clarksdale Outing Club, of 
the Clarksdale Lodge of Elks and of the Clarksdale Rotary Club. He has 
traveled widely in the United States and in Canada. No man is better known 
in his section than he and better loved bv all who know him. 



349 



a. €. Jflafjannaf) 




LBERT ELLSWORTH MAHANNAH, Memphis, Tennessee, 
has erected here the largest hardwood sawmill in the United 
States, which turns out lumber which his firm makes into 
bodies for the largest automobile factory in the world and into 
wheels for eight other large motor cars. The plant, in full 
operation, with the additions being made will have four thou- 
sand men on its payroll. Mr. Mahannah was born February 20, 1864, in Cort- 
land, Ohio, and received a public school and collegiate education. He came 
South in 1900, operating at various places in the mill and lumber business for 
five years and then came to Memphis, operating a mill of only medium size 
under the name of the Mahannah Lumber Company, where Plum Street and 
the Illinois Central Railroad join. Mr. Mahannah, finally in the right location, 
showed himself to be one of the best of sawmill men and his business grew 
from the start. He sold his plant to the Kelsey Wheel Company of Detroit, 
Michigan, in 1912, and has managed the plant since then for them, having sold 
his product to them for several years preceding this which made it advantageous 
for Mr. Kelsey to finance a plant which Mr. Mahannah should manage in the 
center of the hardwood belt, making wheels and bodies for the eight large auto 
companies complete. Mr. Mahannah erected in the North Memphis plant, what 
experienced mill men say, is the best hardwood sawmill in the United States 
and the largest. It has a ten-hour capacity of one hundred and twenty thousand 
feet, or nearly a quarter of a million feet if operated day and night to its 
capacity, and yet with every appliance for the mechanical handling of the 
material and product known to the trade and many new inventions along that 
line, the plant at full capacity will require four thousand men. The dry kilns 
are second in size only to those erected at Dayton, Ohio, for the Wright Brothers 
to fill their airplane-war-contracts. The completed plant will have a monthly 
capacity of fifty thousand automobile bodies and eighty thousand sets of auto- 
mobile wheels. All of the Cadillac, Studebaker, Hupp, Dodge, Maxwell, Paige, 
Hudson and a large part of Ford wheels are made in the Kelsey plant. Ford 
takes all the wheels that the plant can supply to him. Mr. Mahannah bought 
nineteen thousand acres of land for the company out from Rolling Fork, 
Mississippi, and is building the highest priced log railroad in the United States 
on which to get out this timber. Miles of the tract of timber is subject to back- 
water in flood seasons from around the end of the levee system. Mr. Mahannah 
was married November 7, 1882, to Miss Ida L. Davis. They had four sons, 
Floyd R., Joseph C, Albert A., and Maxwell E., all of whom are at the 
Kelsey Wheel plant. He married the second time to Miss Elizabeth Breen, 
on April 7, 1915. 



350 




■ *a>^*v^ 





. sou, 0?<JL^^yc^ 



©i\ <£. M. Jfleux 




EORGE WHITFIELD MEUX, Stanton, Tennessee, physician, 
planter and breeder of fancy livestock, was born June 4, 1881, 
in the house which his grandfather built in 1834 one mile 
southwest of Stanton when he moved there from Virginia 
and which has been in the family ever since. He is the son 
of James Steger and Jo (Somervell) Meux, the Somervell 
family being equally distinguished in Tennessee, Virginia from the colonial 
days and in England, with the Meux family, for its vigor, refinement and cour- 
age. Doctor Meux attended the common schools of Stanton and then went to 
Webb School at Bellbuckle, Tennessee. Then he went to Vanderbilt University 
at Nashville, Tennessee, where he received his degree of bachelor of arts in 
1903. The next three years of his life were put in with the medical department 
of the same University and in 1906 he received from it his degree of doctor of 
medicine. He finished his preparation for the practice of his profession by 
spending the year 1907 in Bellevue Hospital, New York City, and then came 
to Memphis where he spent two years in practice. In 1908 his father died 
and in 1909 Doctor Meux returned to Stanton, where he engaged both in 
the practice of medicine and in looking after the large estate that his father had 
left. When the grandfather moved to Haywood County he bought three hun- 
dred and twenty acres of land and built upon it. The father of Doctor Meux 
added considerably to the house as he did also to the tract which his father had 
acquired and the adjoining eighty acres which his grandmother bought after 
the death of her husband. Doctor Meux followed in the footsteps of his father 
in both lines. Now his palatial home, situated on the Memphis-to-Bristol High- 
way is equipped with every modern comfort and convenience of the city without 
any of its nuisances. Although having attained success in his profession. Doctor 
Meux is doing all that he can to retire from it, but the people of his section are 
also doing all that they can to prevent his doing so. He is the owner of three 
thousand acres of land and derives his pleasure from the scientific and diver- 
sified cultivation of it. He feels that he is doing the country a real service by 
this and that his life will not have been in vain if he shall have helped his 
country to raise larger crops on the same area of land. He is also a breeder of 
fine shorthorn cattle, Poland-China hogs and blooded horses. He owns in Hal 
Baxter one of the two living sons of Brown Hal; and Ed Geers, premier reins- 
man of the world, in his delightful memoirs, rates the Hal blood as the most 
virile of all harness stock. Hal Baxter has never been trained for the track, but 
has done a trial mile in 2:12. Doctor Meux belongs to the American and Hay- 
wood County medical associations. He and Miss Martha Garnett of Somer- 
ville, Tennessee, were married April 27, 1915. They have two children: Jo 
Somervell and Martha. 



355 



M. P. $arfes 




HE Honorable Walter B. Parks, planter, merchant, banker 
and capitalist, Merigold, Mississippi, is a native of the State, 
having been born August 27, 1867, at Oxford, the son of 
William Beatty and Calista Virginia (Hudson) Parks. He 
received his early education at the Toccopola High School and 
at the early age of eighteen went to Texas, where he engaged 
in the farming business at Belton. Although he made a success there, he did 
not see the future in that State that he realized was open for an active man 
in the Mississippi Delta, and at the age of twenty years he returned to Missis- 
sippi and located at Shelby. He went into the store of A. M. Wynn, then doing 
a general mercantile business there, working first as a clerk. Later Mr. Wynn 
opened a branch store at Merigold and Mr. Parks went there in 1890 as chief 
clerk, but soon was promoted to bookkeeper and shortly thereafter to manager 
of the store. He remained with Mr. Wynn there until 1894, when he went into 
business for himself in Merigold under the firm name of W. B. Parks. Two 
years later he had developed to the point where he added planting to his mer- 
cantile business, beginning with one hundred and sixty acres. He has increased 
his holdings steadily from that time until this. Now he owns an eighteen-hun- 
dred-acre plantation at Merigold, where he resides. He owns a three-thousand- 
acre plantation at O'Reilly, Mississippi. Having been born in the hills, Mr. 
Parks' vision is not confined to the fertile lands of the Delta. He realized 
the possibilities of the uplands also and some years ago bought in Hinds County, 
near Jackson, Mississippi, a tract of forty-five hundred acres, where he is 
engaged in the livestock business on a large scale. He raises white-faced cattle, 
hogs and sheep on this upland plantation. Mr. Parks also is the owner of some 
fifteen hundred acres of land in fee simple in Louisiana, and the geology of 
that section, based upon the present oil wells, indicates that there are anticlines 
under his land. But Senator Parks has not devoted by any manner of means 
all of his time to making money for himself. He has found time to be of service 
to his county and his State. He represented Bolivar County in the lower house 
of the State Legislature for the 1912-14 term, and the following four years 
served with distinction and usefulness in the upper house, being of especial 
service in the matter of agriculture, roads, banking and drainage. He is presi- 
dent of the Bank of Merigold ; vice-president of the Cotton Exchange Bank of 
Cleveland ; director in the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company, and in the Bank 
of Clarksdale ; director in the Merchants Bank & Trust Company of Jackson ; 
director in the People's Compress Company of Clarksdale, and stockholder in 
many lesser enterprises. He and Miss Mary Elizabeth Wynn were married 
October 4, 1900. Their children are Misses Annie Claire, Virginia and Frances. 



356 















■A JRv«l 




% - '■ 


V 










Mill $ples 




JILL PYLES, Blytheville, Arkansas, one of the leading whole- 
sale merchants, bankers and public spirited men of northeast- 
ern Arkansas, was born in Troy, Tennessee, November 4, 1869, 
the son of Hugh M. and Tennie B. Pyles. His father was 
engaged in the saw mill business with Mr. George W. Windell 
of New Albany, Indiana, and Mr. Windell induced the father 
to send the young man there to complete his education. Then Mr. Pyles went 
to work for Hayden Brothers, buying lumber in Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, 
Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. He bought lumber later in the same ter- 
ritory for two other concerns and then when the Louisville & Nashville Railroad 
was building its Cumberland Valley line he went there and worked in the com- 
missary department long enough to learn the grocery business. In 1901, Mr. 
Pyles went to Osceola, Arkansas, and organized the Burton Grocery Com- 
pany, for which he traveled. Blytheville was in his territory. Then it was 
but a small place, but Mr. Pyles foresaw its future. While still traveling for 
the Burton company he began trying to form a wholesale grocery concern at 
Blytheville with the thorough understanding that it was to take over the Burton 
company. The result of his efforts was the organization in May, 1904, of the 
Arkansas Grocery Company at Blytheville, with an authorized capital of 
$50,000, of which $30,000 was paid in, which took over the Osceola concern. 
Mr. Pyles traveled for the new house until December, 1912, when his capacity 
was recognized by the directors of the company to the extent that he was made 
vice-president and manager of the company. The company then had its capital 
all paid up and a surplus of $5,000. Mr. Pyles pushed the business with such 
vigor and discretion that a few years later he was made president of the com- 
pany. Soon thereafter he opened at Hayti, Missouri, a branch of the Arkansas 
Grocery Company. Now, under his direction, the company has a fully paid up 
capital of $200,000 with a surplus of $35,0000 and no concern in northeast 
Arkansas stands higher than it does. In 1917, Mr. Pyles undertook the reorgani- 
zation of the Farmers Bank. It then had a capital and surplus of $37,500. He 
added a trust department and changed the name to Farmers Bank & Trust Com- 
pany. Under his guidance as president, the institution now has capital, surplus 
and undivided profits aggregating $120,000, is a member of the Federal Reserve 
Bank System, and passed the financial crisis in Blytheville of 1920 without a 
question of its solvency. During the World War, Mr. Pyles was sales director 
for all Liberty and Victory loans and Y. M. C. A. and Salvation Army campaigns 
and all went over the top in less than their allotted times. Mr. Pyles and Miss 
Ora Caldwell were married in February, 1890. Their child, Miss Eva, now is 
Mrs. Leslie Hooper. After having been a widower many years, he and Miss Ada 
Scott were married in September, 1902. 



361 



a. p. &ee*e 




LBERT BAILEY REESE, banker, planter and financier, Itta 
Bena, Mississippi, was born in Yalobusha County, Mississippi, 
February 21, 1885, the son of Albert Bailey and Susie (Mac) 
Reese. He attended the grammar schools of DeSoto County 
and the high school at Itta Bena, and then went to the Agricul- 
tural & Mechanical College at Starkville, Mississippi, where he 
took and maintained a high standing, physically, mentally and morally, being 
vice-president of the Y. M. C. A. At the age of nineteen years he went to work 
for the Bank of Itta Bena on the bottom rung of the ladder which he has 
climbed so rapidly in sixteen years that now he is one of the outstanding factors 
in the rapid development of that rich section of the Mississippi Delta. He was 
"runner" for the bank for the first year and then earned promotion to the posi- 
tion of bookkeeper. In three years he was made cashier. In the meanwhile the 
institution has become the First National Bank of Itta Bena and he still is the 
cashier as well as one of the directors. He is also a director and cashier of 
the First Savings Bank of Itta Bena ; a director in the Itta Bena Compress Com- 
pany ; interested in the Holland-Delta Cotton Company, buyer and exporter of 
the long staples of that section; part owner in fifty-two hundred acres of magnifi- 
cent land in LeFlore and Humphreys counties ; director in the Dixie Rubber 
Company of Memphis, and a stockholder in the Crull-Whittington Wholesale 
Dry Goods Company of Greenwood, Mississippi. He is interested in several 
hundred acres of land near El Paso, Texas, on which there are such strong 
indications of oil that the owners have refused several times what they paid for 
the land. He is also secretary and treasurer of the Delta National Farm Own- 
ers Association, which has jurisdiction under the New Orleans branch of the 
Federal Land Bank over LeFlore, Sunflower, Humphreys and part of Tallahat- 
chie counties in farm loans. The new home of his bank has a special department 
and equipment for caring for this important work. In 1919 he divided a four- 
thousand-acre tract into one-hundred-acre blocks and sold them to negroes, thus 
creating a colony with every indication of success for the inhabitants. During 
the war, Mr. Reese was one of the most active men in LeFlore County for the 
success of all of the campaigns put on for Liberty bonds, Victory bonds, War 
Savings Stamps, the Red Cross, and in fact, every patriotic cause. He has been 
an active and devout member of the Methodist Church for a number of years 
and for the past ten years has been president of the board of stewards and 
superintendent of the Sunday School for the congregation of that denomination 
in Itta Bena. He is also a trustee for the Humphreys Consolidated High School 
at Itta Bena. Mr. Reese and Miss Maude Sullivan of Webb, Mississippi, were 
married December 24, 1905. They have one child, Albert Bailey Reese, Junior. 



362 



M. C Eeebes 

ALTER THOMAS REEVES, wholesale grocer, Tupelo, Mis- 
sissippi, was born in Greenville, Georgia, March 2, 1866, the 
Wf§n son of Madison and Mary (Render) Reeves. After having 
fsu finished his education at the Greenville High School he became 
a traveling salesman for a grocery house in Georgia, in which 
line he remained until 1899, when he came to Memphis and 
became connected with the Oliver-Finne Company. He sold groceries for that 
firm on the road for seven years and at the end of that time had selected Tupelo 
as the place in which he would go into business on his own account. He organ- 
ized the Reeves Grocery Company there with a capital stock of $40,000, he being 
elected president and general manager of the company. The first year the 
company did a gross business of $350,000 on that capital stock. Mr. Reeves 
was in a line that he knew thoroughly. To this information and the amount of 
capital stock, he added industry, sterling integrity and absolute honesty. In the 
fourteen years that he has been at the head of the company, he has increased 
the capital fourfold until now it is $160,000 and the annual volume of business 
is in excess of a million dollars. The company covers a territory seventy-five 
miles in every direction from Tupelo with its five traveling salesmen, and has 
earned a reputation both among its debtors and creditors which is second to 
none in the Mid-South. Since his residence in Tupelo, Mr. Reeves has been one 
of the active factors in the wonderful readjustment of that entire county. Lee 
County has probably the best roads in the State and they have been built for 
the least money in proportion to their class. Mr. Reeves was an early advocate 
of their construction and is a staunch supporter of the good-roads movement. 
He is a leader in the cause of higher and better education, and with that end in 
view is president of the board of trustees for the Tupelo Military Institute, one 
of the leading educational institutions in that sction of the State. In fact there 
has been no movement in years for better citizenship and civic progress that 
he has not supported with his time and his money. He is a steward in the 
Methodist Church and district lay leader for the church. He is commissioner 
from Mississippi for the magnificent Tri-State Methodist Hospital which that 
denomination is erecting in Memphis. He was recognized as one of the leading 
wholesale grocers of the South by being elected a director in and a vice-president 
of the Southern Wholesale Grocers' Association. In a business way, in addi- 
tion to his grocery firm, he is interested in the Cotton States Life Insurance 
Company of Memphis, of which he is vice-president, and is a director in the 
Peoples Bank & Trust Company of Tupelo. Mr. Reeves and Miss Lena Milam 
were married February 18, 1901. They have three children: Walter Thomas, 
Junior; Stafford Render, and Milam Reeves. 



367 



€. 3L &pfees; 




IUGENE LANIER SYKES, banker, planter, laywer and lead- 
ing citizen of Aberdeen, Mississippi, is a native of that section 
of the country and a member of a family which has been con- 
spicuous in Mississippi for many generations, each successive 
generation furnishing leaders for every movement for the 
upbuilding of the community along all good lines. Mr. Sykes 
was born on Glenwood Plantation, near Aberdeen, August 21, 1873, the son 
of Major Augustus James and Georgia Augusta (Sykes) Sykes. His educa- 
tion was in keeping with the traditions of the family, for at the completion of 
the courses in the common schools at home, he was sent to Agricultural & Mechan- 
ical College at Starkville, where he spent the sessions of 1887 and 1888. Then 
he went to the University of Mississippi at Oxford, where he remained until 
1891. From 1895 to 1897 he was a student at the law school of the University 
of Virginia, where he was graduated in the latter year, with the degree 
of bachelor of laws. He spent the following year at the New York Law School, 
New York City, and at the end of that time was admitted to the practice of 
the profession in New York City. During the following three years he was 
rapidly establishing a splendid practice there, when the death of his only brother 
made it necessary for him to return to Mississippi and take active charge of the 
family's large estate. Since that time he has devoted his time and attention 
to his large banking, plantation and general business interests to the exclusion 
of the law. Upon his return to Mississippi he was elected president of the 
First National Bank of Aberdeen, one of the strongest financial institutions in 
that section of the State in which his family had been interested heavily since 
its organization. The growth of the bank since he assumed charge of it in 1911 
is best proof of the ability that he has put into it. He is also the president and 
active head of the Sykes Plantations, under which name the large planting and 
livestock interests are operated, and which comprise several thousand acres of 
the finest of the black prairie land in eastern Mississippi. The largest of these 
plantations is at Muldon, where Mr. Sykes devotes most of the land to the 
production of hay and to the raising of Hereford cattle and the finishing of 
mules, which he buys in large numbers up-country while they are young. He is 
also president of the Monroe Cotton Oil Company of Aberdeen and a large 
owner of real estate in the city. He is a member of the Methodist Church ; an 
Elk; a Mason; a member of the New York Bar Association; the Memphis Coun- 
try Club, and the Tennessee Club of Memphis. Mr. Sykes and Miss Jennie 
Prewett Shoup of New York City were married December 23, 1898. Their 
children are: Miss Dorothy Wayne, now Mrs. Frank Hall of New Albany, Mis- 
sissippi; Eugene Lanier, Junior; and Conwell Shoup Sykes. 



368 




oL^i <*-*- (r-OA^u^ ¥-cj i Up 



9. J. Summons; 



A 



LBERT J. SIMMONS, planter, merchant and capitalist, Clark- 
dale, Mississippi, is a native of Fayette County, Tennessee, 
where he was born August 27, 1876, the son of John Wesley 
and Anna Ophelia (Rodgers) Simmons. During the days of 
his youth, Fayette County was not enjoying its former or rec- 
ent prosperity, and Mr. Simmons was tutored at home and in 
the public schools of his native county. Later he worked on roads, at farming 
and clerking in a store in Moscow to secure further education, which he did 
in the West Tennessee Normal School and at Nelson's Business College in Mem- 
phis, where he displayed such aptitude and diligence that he took the full course 
in three months, the time that he had spent clerking standing him in good stead 
at the business college. Upon the completion of this course, Mr. Simmons went 
to work for the Illinois Central Railroad in Memphis as clerk in the freight 
office. After a short time he accepted a position as bookkeeper for a Front 
Street firm. On October 12, 1903, he and Miss Elsie Gurney of Blue Mountain, 
Mississippi, were married. They have one son, Harold Rolston Simmons, born 
in 1912. After filling the position of cashier and credit man in Memphis till 
1906, he moved to the Mississippi Delta and settled at Lyon and became book- 
keeper for the store and planting business of Mr. E. J. Mullens, a man of 
exceptionally high character and capacity. It required but a month for Mr. Mul- 
lens to realize that in Mr. Simmons he had a man capable of far more than a 
mere clerkship, and hence he was promoted in December, 1906, to manager of 
the plantation. Mr. Simmons rendered Mr. Mullens good service in that capac- 
ity for two years, and by that time he had become strong enough to go into 
business on his own account. He leased a plantation of some twelve hundred 
acres and began on it a career for himself which has been a marked success in 
every sense of the word, for, while he put a high degree of energy into it, he 
still has found time to be of service to his community in all movements for its 
upbuilding. He is an active member of the Methodist Church and is superinten- 
dent of the Sunday School at Lyon. In 1914 he bought from Mr. Parks the 
East View place, half a mile from Clarksdale, where he has built a beautiful 
home equipped with every modern convenience, a big store, an electric gin and 
added everything necessary to an up-to-date plantation, for the plantation was 
improved when he bought it. Now he cultivates more than a thousand acres 
there, and there is none better in Coahoma County. He is a stockholder and 
director in the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company : a stockholder in the Peoples 
Compress Company, the Johnson-Harlow Lumber Company, the Memphis Pack- 
ing Corporation, the Seven States Oil Company, the Seven States Products 
Company and the Mobile Tractor Company, being distributor in the State of 
Mississippi for the tractor company's output. 



373 



C. &. Strain 




[LARK RAYMOND STRAIN, one of the leading manufac- 
turers and business men of Tupelo, Lee County, Mississippi, 
is a native of that county, having been born May 18, 1869, at 
Verona, a few miles south of Tupelo, the son of James Hen- 
derson and Sarah Jane (Lilly) Strain. After attending the 
public schools and Bingham's Military School in Orange County, 
North Carolina, Mr. Strain came to Memphis and entered the employment of 
the Oliver-Finnie Grocery Company as city buyer. He remained with that con- 
cern from 1891 to 1899. While a resident of Memphis, Mr. Strain was a mem- 
ber of the Chickasaw Guards, a director in the club and first sergeant of the 
military company. When the Spanish-American War came on Mr. Strain went 
into the national service with Colonel Kellar Anderson on the first call for volun- 
teers and served until the end of the war with the Second Tennessee Infantry. 
He entered as sergeant major on the non-commissioned staff and while at Camp 
Meade, Pennsylvania, was promoted to second lieutenant. At Columbia, South 
Carolina, he was again promoted to a first lieutenancy. Following the muster- 
ing out of the regiment, Mr. Strain returned to Lee County, Mississippi, where 
with the aid of his father, he formed the Tupelo Cotton Oil Company, his father 
being the first president of the concern. The following year the charter of the 
company was amended to the Tupelo Oil & Ice Company, and the business 
expanded to take in the latter product. Mr. Strain was made president and 
general manager, which position he still retains. Under his direction of the com- 
pany it has grown to be one of the recognized establishments of its kind in the 
Mid-South. He is one of the two men who are responsible mainly for the organi- 
zation of the Tupelo Fertilizer Factory and the erection of a large plant there 
which has been such a tremendous factor in the improvement of the agricul- 
tural condition in that section of the state and which does a large business all 
over the Mid-South. He is director in the company. Mr. Strain is also vice-pres- 
ident of the Tupelo Compress Company, a director and member of the executive 
committee of the Bank of Tupelo, vice-president of the Tupelo Hotel Company, 
vice-president of the Lee County Fair, vice-president of the Tupelo Golf & 
Country Club and member of the Memphis Country Club. Mr. Strain has never 
sought political office for profit, but for the last six years has consented to serve 
as a member of the Tupelo Board of Aldermen and in that capacity has charge 
of the municipal light and power plant, and so valuable has been his services to 
the community in that line that he has recently been re-elected. Mr. Strain 
and Miss Musette Carew Biggs of Collierville, Tennessee, were married Febru- 
ary 7, 1900. They have four children, James Raymond, Cecil Clark, Janye Lilly 
and Etta Corinne. Mr. Strain and family attend the Methodist Church. 



374 




vJUo^. <A. c ^ajjlo^: 



d. ft. &mart 




[HOMAS HENRY SMART, owner of the Memphis Overland 
Company, has done more in Memphis during the seven years 
that he has lived here than most men have accomplished in a 
lifetime. He was born in Dudley, England, October 19, 1884, 
the son of Thomas Henry and Alice (Clark) Smart, while the 
senior Mr. Smart was there as an expert accountant for a firm 
in Boston, Massachusetts, where the family returned when the junior Mr. Smart 
was a mere babe in arms. Few men of his age in Memphis are better educated 
and more widely informed than he is, and yet he never lost a day from work in 
his life to go to school, but he spent an untold number of nights in securing his 
education. He attended the Boston public schools during his younger years, but 
from the day that he was twelve years of age he has earned every bite of bread 
that he has eaten. He says that he grew up in almost every city in the United 
States, but there was not a week from the time that he left home until he was 
twenty-six years of age that he did not spend at least five nights in a night 
school if there was one in the city, and if there was not one, that he did not 
study, taking the full course in numerous correspondence schools. At sixteen 
years he was a master mechanic's apprentice in Meriden, Connecticut. Apt in 
that work as he has been in every line to which he has devoted his attention, he 
soon became a mechanic, then a tester and then a demonstrator. At twenty 
years of age he was a salesman for the White Steamer Company in Philadel- 
phia, and in four years he had worked up to where he was head retailer on the 
sales floor in the New York agency of that company. He traveled then for 
three years for the White, Hudson and Overland companies, becoming repre- 
sentative for the Overland car for all the territory south of the Ohio River. 
Lindsey Hopkins then had the Overland agency in Atlanta and it was a losing 
proposition until he secured Mr. Smart as his manager. Under Mr. Smart's 
management the company made handsome profits the first year. Returning to 
the Willys-Overland Company for a time, Mr. Smart saved his money and in 
September, 1913, came to Memphis and bought the agency for the Overland 
cars for West Tennessee, North Mississippi and Eastern Arkansas. This was 
but a small business then, as there were but five accounts in the territory. The 
first act that Mr. Smart performed was to go from the Peabody Hotel over to 
the Business Men : s Club (now Chamber of Commerce), join the club and 
volunteer for service in any campaign for the good of the city. He has been in 
most of them since. It took him three weeks to sell his first Overland car here. 
Since then he has sold approximately nine thousand, being second only to the 
Fords, and built many buildings for Overland agencies in this territory. The 
Overland home was the first modern one erected in Memphis. He married 
Miss Irene Bella Amey, April 17, 1904. They have no child. 



379 



3T. a. Cratoforb 




^ftvttAMES ALBERT CRAWFORD, Memphis, Tennessee, capital- 
^"^*A ist, retired planter and banker, was born in DeKalb, Missis- 

J/£a sippi, May 8, 1861, the son of Judge Mastin Duke and Martha 
[gJJ (Rush) Crawford. Judge Crawford was of North Carolina 
^^*xv stock and in ante-bellum days was a large land holder and 
£^Y£J slave owner in Mississippi. Soon after the Civil War he 
invested in Texas lands, but in 1869 sold them and his Mississippi holdings and 
moved to California, where he was a pioneer, acquired large possessions under 
Spanish grants and settled in Los Angeles, then a town of five thousand inhabi- 
tants. Mr. Crawford went to Sackett's School in Oakland, California, where 
he won the scholarship medal and then to the University of Michigan, where 
he graduated in the law course in 1886 as historian of the class. He was licensed 
to practice in the courts of Michigan and California and in the United States 
courts, but chose a business career. He was married May 15, 1888, to Mrs. Lil- 
lie Brown Heathman, widow of James M. Heathman, from whom she had 
inherited some property at Heathman, Sunflower County, Mississippi. They 
met while she was the guest of Mr. Crawford's mother in Los Angeles. She 
was the daughter of James H. Brown of Madison County, Mississippi, who had 
built for his winter home on the Gulf of Mexico, Beauvoir, later the home of 
Jefferson Davis and now the Mississippi Confederate Soldiers' Home. In later 
years Mr. Crawford tried to buy this property back into the family, but finding 
that the State wanted it for so laudable a purpose, he withdrew from the con- 
test. Shortly after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Crawford went to Heathman 
with the intention of renting out the property and living in California, but 
Mr. Crawford saw the wonderful possibilities of the Mississippi Delta, and, 
instead of going west, they settled there. For the next thirty-two years Mr. Craw- 
ford was unsurpassed by any man as a factor for the development of the Delta. 
He increased his holdings until he owned in all twelve thousand acres, and he 
reduced no less than ten thousand acres of land from virgin wilderness to the 
highest state of cultivation of any plantation in the Mississippi Delta. He had 
no taste or time for public office, but three of the best governors of the State 
— Stone, Lowry and Longino — induced him to serve on the levee board. His 
palatial home at Heathman, just south of the railroad, equipped with every 
modern convenience of the city and surrounded by a grove of one hundred 
acres of giant forest trees was for years the show place of the Delta. Aggres- 
sive, courageous and positive ; a gentleman by birth, education and association ; 
refined, kind, courteous, fair and generous to all, Mr. Crawford was loved by 
the entire community, of both races, who sincerely regretted the recent sale of 
the Heathman plantation and his determination to spend the remainder of his 
life largely in travel with Mrs. Crawford over the world. 



380 




^ ™A3 \\JuuA-wvA, 



Br. 5®. Jfl. Jlenmng 




|R. DAVID MAX HENNING, surgeon, Memphis, Tennessee, 
began the practice of his profession under the most auspicious 
circumstances possible, and has lived professionally up to the 
high standard set by his father, and personally up to the equally 
high one set by both of the distinguished families from which 
he is descended. He was born in Memphis, October 15, 1875, 
the son of Dr. Bennett Greaves Henning, for years one of the most successful 
and beloved physicians in this section, and equally conspicuous as a leader in 
financial, social, business and political circles. His mother was Miss Cornelia 
Frayser, of one of the oldest, best and most talented families in the Mid-South. 
The lad was given the best of early education in Memphis and then sent to 
Phillips Exeter in New Hampshire, where he completed his literary education 
in 1894. He then went to his father's plantation in Lauderdale County, Tennes- 
see, and spent two years strengthening his constitution for the strain that was 
later to be put upon it. In 1896, he returned to Memphis and entered the Mem- 
phis Hospital Medical College, then at the zenith of a wonderfully brilliant 
career in which his father was and had been a large factor. He received his 
degree of M. D. from that institution in 1900, and two years later received 
the same degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Ever 
since that time he has attended some one of the clinics of the larger cities for 
a few weeks every year. Returning from New York in 1902, Dr. Henning 
immediately began the practice of his profession in Memphis with his father, 
specializing in surgery, devoting a large part of his attention to rectal surgery. 
Soon after having received his license to practice in Tennessee, he was made a 
member of the staff of St. Joseph's Hospital in rectal surgery and later in gen- 
eral surgery and has been a member of the staff in those lines ever since. He 
served as one of the clinical professors of rectal and general surgery in the 
Memphis Hospital Medical College for years and later was chosen as a lecturer 
in rectal surgery for the University of Tennessee Medical College. He is a 
member of the American, Memphis & Shelby County, Mississippi Valley and 
Tennessee State Medical societies ; the Memphis Country and Tennessee clubs ; 
the Menesha Outing and the Horse Shoe Lake Hunting & Fishing clubs ; the 
Chamber of Commerce, and the Shrine, and has traveled widely in Europe and 
the Far East. He entered the army medical service as captain in March, 1918, 
with Base Hospital No. 57, served as chief of a surgical team on the Belgian and 
French fronts, was promoted to major, and after his discharge returned to Mem- 
phis, limiting his practice to surgery. He and Miss Charlie Scott married April 
25, 1911. Their daughters are Charlie Scott, Cornelia and Elizabeth. 



385 



£. £. Sopgon 




jOWELL HARRISON HOPSON, although yet less than fifty 
years of age, is one of the oldest inhabitants of Clarksdale, 
Mississippi, and one of the few there of his age who can 
claim that city as their native home. When such pioneers as 
he began to show the world the wonderful possibilities of the 
Coahoma County, the county was so sparsely settled and the 
influx of population so much greater than the normal increase in the human 
race that Clarksdale sprang almost overnight from a small village into a metro- 
politan city. Mr. Hopson has been a conspicuous leader in every movement for 
the good of the community. The son of Howell Harrison Hopson and Elizabeth 
(Mallory) Hopson, early settlers in Coahoma County, he was born in Clarks- 
dale, October 26, 1875. He attended the common and high school at Clarksdale 
and finished his education at Bethel College, Russellwood, Kentucky. At the 
age of twenty years, Mr. Hopson returned from college and took personal 
charge of his own land, in the suburbs of Clarksdale, where he began the career 
as a planter in which he has been such a conspicuous success from the begin- 
ning. No man in the county surpassed him in his capacity to handle negroes — to 
organize them for work and to inspire them with absolute confidence in his 
honesty ; and his influence and example along those lines have been of great 
value on other plantations throughout the community. Mr. Hopson's planta- 
tion and the mercantile business conducted by him in connection with it have 
been very profitable to him, and with the earnings from those sources he has 
become financially interested in many of the best business concerns of Clarks- 
dale. He is a stockholder in the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company and a mem- 
ber of its board of directors ; a stockholder and director in the People's Compress 
Company ; a stockholder in the Bank of Clarksdale ; a stockholder in the Delta 
Bank & Trust Company ; a stockholder in the Friedman Shoe Company, and a 
stockholder and director in the Mississippi Valley Dry Goods Company. He 
is a member of the Methodist Church ; of the Benevolent and Protective Order 
of Elks, No. 977, Clarksdale; of the Coahoma County Chamber of Commerce, 
and of the New Country Club. He has traveled widely throughout the United 
States. Mr. Hopson has never sought political office, but served one term by 
appointment as a member of the Board of Commissioners for the Upper Yazoo 
Levee District, where his intimate knowledge of conditions and requirements, 
his sterling honesty, his sound judgment and good business sense were of great 
benefit to the entire district. H also served as a member of the City Commis- 
sion during 1916 and 1917. He and Miss Catherine Rivers Harris were married 
July 1, 1897. Their children are Howell, Jr.; Richard Nelson, Elizabeth Mal- 
lory, Catherine Harris and Mary Clark. 



386 




(^L—y <ft. C&^&y 



£. ft. Colbp 




jENRY ROBERTS COLBY, Memphis, Tennessee, distributor of 
Delco-Light, has spent his business life in promoting the use 
of three of the greatest inventions of modern times in so far 
as the systematizing of business, diffusion of knowledge and 
and adding to the comforts of country life are concerned. He 
spent his first two years in business with the National Cash 
Register Company, without whose product the modern business could not be 
conducted ; the next six with the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, second only 
to Guttenberg in making the written language rapid and cheap enough to reach 
the masses, and then with the Delco-Light Company, which has been one of the 
main factors in adding to the country home one of the greatest former city 
advantages, electric lights. Prior to the last few years economists throughout 
the land have been greatly concerned over the steady movement of people from 
the country to the city, a large portion of this movement being of the class of 
people whom the country districts could not afford to lose if its efficiency was 
to be maintained. The water problem for the country has been solved years 
ago, and it remained for Delco-Light to take the last of the city conveniences to 
the country. That this has been done and is rapidly extending its range of 
usefulness is shown by the fact that in the four years that Mr. Colby has been 
the Memphis representative of the concern he has placed five thousand plants in 
the homes and stores in Western Tennessee, Northern Mississippi and Eastern 
Arkansas, which is the territory covered by Mr. Colby from Memphis. Mr. Colby 
was born in Dayton, Ohio, March 27, 1881, the son of the Reverend and Mrs. 
Henry Francis Colby. His father, Dr. Colby, was a minister of the Baptist 
Church, and held the pastorate of one congregation in Dayton for thirty-five 
years, beloved by his flock and respected by the entire community. Mr. Colby 
was educated in the city schools at Dayton and finished his course in Denison 
University, Granville, Ohio, where he belonged to the Sigma Chi college fra- 
ternity. Prior to coming to Memphis in 1916, he had traveled for the concerns 
with which he was connected not only all over the United States and Canada, 
but all over Europe as well, having seen all that was worth seeing in fifteen 
different countries. Since coming to Memphis he has been very active in every 
movement for the progress of the community. He is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, having attained to the thirty-second degree ; is a member of the Mystic 
Shrine, Al Chymia Temple ; a member of the Kiwanis Club, and of the Cham- 
ber of Commerce. He has never sought or held any political office. Mr. Colby 
and Miss Katherine Ehrenhart were married November 9, 1905. They have 
three children, Jane, born in 1910; Gardner, born in 1916, and Bradford, born 
in 1918. 



391 



$. a. &pan 





|HILIP ANDREW RYAN, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the 
leading lumber manufacturers of the South, was born in 

Pwj£j Muscatine County, Iowa, November 1, 1862, the son of Dennis 
Wsh and Kate (Dalton) Ryan. He attended the district schools 
of Muscatine County and the high school at Letts, Iowa, and 
then entered a business college at Fulton, Illinois. At the 
end of that time, he left school and went to Omaha, Nebraska, where he entered 
the employ of a wholesale firm handling heavy hardware. He spent four years 
in that line in Omaha and then went to Chicago, where he became associated 
with the firm of Kelly, Maus & Company, doing a large business along the same 
line. He remained with that firm for seven and a half years and then entered 
the employ of the Deering Harvester Company, where he spent three and a half 
years. He then went with the International Harvester Company for a year and 
a month, when he and Mr. Tom McParland formed the firm of Ryan & McPar- 
land in Chicago, dealing in hardwood lumber with a specialty of wagon and 
implement stock in which Mr. Ryan was expert by reason of his experience with 
the harvester companies. They conducted a successful business as lumber deal- 
ers in Chicago for six years, and then Mr. Ryan came to Memphis, buying a 
saw mill in South Memphis and commencing the manufacture of lumber. Mr. 
McParland remained in Chicago looking after the sales end of the partnership. 
When the panic of 1907 came on, Mr. McParland lost faith in the South and 
wanted the firm to give up the mill here. Mr. Ryan possessed far more vision 
and realized that upon the restoration of normal conditions the lumber manufac- 
turing business in the South would be one of the best lines of business in the 
country for one who understood it and was willing to back his faith with his 
money. The result was the dissolution of the partnership, Mr. McParland 
securing the northern end of the business and Mr. Ryan the Memphis mill. He 
personally ran the mill during the panic and weathered the storm, somewhat 
shaken, as was everyone else, but still with his business and organization intact 
and ready to take advantage of the era of prosperity which he foresaw. He 
formed a partnership with Mr. J. V. Stimson of Huntingburg, Indiana, in the 
manufacture of lumber in New South Memphis, but after two years sold out 
to Mr. Stimson and made heavy investments in timber in Texas, operating 
under the name of Phil. A. Ryan Lumber Company. He built a big mill at 
Onalaska, operated it for three years, sold it and erected a finer one at Lufkin 
with a daily capacity of 50,000 feet, which he now operates. Mr. Ryan and 
Miss Margaret McCarthy were married in Omaha, October 16, 1888. They 
have three living children : Miss Claire Veronica, now Mrs. Harry E. Scott ; 
Miss Kathryn Francis, now Mrs. George A. Roussel, and James Joseph Ryan. 
Mr. Ryan's pastimes are golf and social games of euchre and 500. 



392 




rfa/6&z*L 



3. <0. $augf) 




IF you got off the train at Clarksdale, Mississippi, and asked 
any voter in Coahoma County where you could find Oscar, he 
would know that you referred to John Oscar Baugh, for they 
all know him and all like him. This is evidenced by the fact 
that he held office for twenty-three years, never having been 
defeated and being the first man in that county who was elected 
sheriff on two occasions for second terms. The son of John VV. and Alice Baugh, 
he was born in Coahoma County, February 1, 1873. Educated at the county 
common schools and the Memphis High School, he took charge of his planta- 
tion near Sherard when he was seventeen years of age. Eight years later he 
was representing his beat on the county board of supervisors. He held that 
position for fifteen years, and was of great benefit to the entire county for the 
stand which he took for all improvements, especially better roads and stronger 
levees. His own magnificent plantation lay just behind one of the largest levees 
along the Mississippi River. Upon the expiration of his term as supervisor, he 
took over the office of sheriff and tax collector, where his administration was 
marked by a high order of efficiency. At the expiration of his legal limit of four 
continuous years in that office, his people induced him to return to the board of 
supervisors, where he served them again with the same fidelity to every trust 
that has ever characterized his career. After four years there, he was again 
elected sheriff and served two terms again, from 1916 to 1919, inclusive. Follow- 
ing this for almost the first year which he can remember, Mr. Baugh was able to 
devote all of his time to his private affairs, which have grown to magnificent 
proportions. He was one of the organizers of the Delta Grocery & Cotton Com- 
pany and still is a stockholder. He is a stockholder in the Friedman-Shulz 
Shoe Company ; in the People's Compress Company ; in the Valley Dry Goods 
Company ; in the Bank of Clarksdale, a wholesale drug concern, and many other 
smaller enterprises. Having lived in Coahoma County all of his life, he has seen 
it grow and develop from almost a complete wilderness subject to overflow at 
every period of high water to the bright place which it now occupies in the sun, 
and he has been a factor in nearly all of this development. He still lives in the 
old family home at Sherard, but spends a great deal of his time in Clarksdale 
looking after his interests there. He has added a magnificent plantation at Rena 
Lara to his original holdings at Sherard, having some 3,200 acres in cultivation. 
Mr. Baugh was married to Miss Stella Garrett April 29, 1897. They have one 
child, a daughter, Miss Thankful, who was born in 1907. They are members of 
the Episcopalian Church, and Mr. Baugh is a member of the Elks Club, No. 977, 
at Clarksdale ; a Knight of Pythias and an Odd Fellow. He has traveled widely 
throughout the United States and Canada. 



397 



Carl £. ^retoer 




WENTY years to the day after having been graduated from 
the law department of the University of Mississippi in the 
record-breaking time of six and a half months, Earl Leroy 
Brewer, as governor of the state, stood in the same hall and 
delivered diplomas. Born to Capt. R. R. and M. E. Brewer 
on August 11, 1868, at Midway, Carroll County, Mississippi, 
educated in the public schools and the State University, he began the practice of 
law in Water Valley on June 15, 1892, just five days after having been given his 
diploma. In September he and Julian C. Wilson, a classmate, later chancellor of 
that district and now a leader of the Memphis bar, formed the firm of Brewer & 
Wilson, which at once took high rank and maintained it until 1901, when it was 
dissolved. An orator, of congenial disposition and a natural leader of men, his 
friends put him up for the State Senate in 1895, where he served with distinc- 
tion four years as the youngest member of that body. In 1892 he was appointed 
district attorney for the Eleventh district and elected soon thereafter for the 
full term, where the vigor of his prosecutions added lustre to his growing 
fame. He resigned in 1907 to enter the race for governor with Scott and Noel, 
Truly, Sisson and Thomas. Noel won, but four years later the campaign which 
Mr. Brewer had previously made bore full fruit and he was nominated and 
elected without opposition to succeed Governor Noel. During his incumbency 
many measures for the benefit of the people were placed on the statute books. 
The legal rate of interest was reducd from ten to eight per cent, with tax 
exemption for loans at six per cent. Progressive road and drainage laws were 
enacted. The initiative and referendum proposed for insertion in the state's 
organic law, as also was the amendment to make valid the verdict of three-fourths 
of a jury in civil cases. Meteoric as his political career had been, it was 
equalled only by the wisdom which he showed in closing it. His ambitions had 
been fulfilled by the high honors which his fellowmen had conferred upon him, 
and he had justified their faith in him by honest, efficient and faithful administra- 
tions, but at the sacrifice of his own affairs. In 1903 he had moved to Clarks- 
dale, and there he returned to resume his legal profession with Dan Brewer and 
Ed. Brewer under the firm name of Brewer, Brewer & Brewer. As a cotton 
planter and dealer in lands, he added greatly to his income. He married Miss 
Minnie Block on October 5, 1897. They have three children, Minnie, Earlene 
and Claudia. He is a Mason, a K. of P., a Knight Templar, an Elk, a W. O. W., 
and Odd Fellow, and a member of the Presbyterian Church. Of striking appear- 
ance, engaging personality and attractive manner, Governor Brewer is conspic- 
uous in any gathering; and greatly enjoyed by all who come in contact with him. 



3^8 



C. <£. Callicott 




[ALLIWAY GODFREY CALLICOTT, merchant, planter and 
capitalist, Alligator, Mississippi, is a native of the state of 
Mississippi, although he began his business career in Oklahoma. 
The son of Calliway and Flavia (Busby) Callicott, he was 
born December 4, 1886, in Coldvvater, Tate County, Missis- 
sippi. He attended the common schools in his home county, 
and then went to the Branham & Hughes preparatory school in Springhill, Ten- 
nessee, and finished his education at a young age in Bethel College. Russellville, 
Kentucky. At the age of seventeen years, he went into the hardware business 
with his father in Tulsa, Oklahoma, under the name of the Tulsa Hardware 
Company. The following year his father died, and Mr. Callicott continued for 
five years to conduct the business successfully. He was in a section of the 
country where the development was rapid and hence many opportunities were 
offered for one of his ability and activity to go to the front, but he yearned for 
his native Mississippi and concluded that the greatest chance for success lay in 
the Delta. In 1908 he sold his hardware business in the west and moved to 
Alligator. The following year Mr. W. B. Nichols, Mr. N. M. Park and he 
organized the Planters Mercantile Company at Alligator, Mr. Callicott having 
charge from the first of the office and credit department. They began with 
planting two thousand acres of land and doing a general furnishing business. 
The business prospered from the start and on January 1, 1914, the same gentle- 
men organized as a branch of the Alligator firm as the Planters Mercantile Com- 
pany of Coahoma, Mississippi. With the beginning of the following year, the 
original partners dissolved, Mr. Nichols taking the new branch house at Coahoma 
and Messrs. Callicott and Park retaining the parent house at Alligator. They 
increased their land operations to thirty-five hundred acres and both continued 
actively in the business until April 6, 1920, when Mr. Park's long and useful 
career was closed by death. Mr. Park had married Mr. Callicott's mother in 
1909, but as there was no issue of that union Mrs. Park retains her husband's 
interest in the business and she and Mr. Callicott continue it under the same 
name. Mr. Callicott has invested his capital which was not needed in the Alli- 
gator business in a number of the best institutions in the Delta. He is a director 
and stockholder in the Bank of Clarksdale ; a stockholder in the Coahoma County 
Cotton Company ; a stockholder in the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company ; a 
stockholder in the People's Compress Company at Clarksdale ; a stockholder in 
the Planters Manufacturing Company at Clarksdale, and a stockholder in the 
Bellevue Cotton Oil Company at Memphis. Mr. Callicott and Miss Susie Park 
were married May 4, 1910. They have two children, Calliway Macon, born 
July 9, 1911, and Dorothy, born January 5, 1916. He is a Methodist, Shriner, 
Elk and Sigma Alpha Epsilon. 



403 



OT. C. Betoep 




lILLIAM CURTIS DEWEY, Memphis, Tennessee, for nearly 
a third of a century has been one of the most potent factors 
in the material, moral and social development of Northeastern 
Arkansas, where he lived for a number of years and where 
his firm, the Chapman & Dewey Lumber Company, owns 
about sixty thousand acres of land. He was born in Rockford, 
Illinois, August 29, 1859, the son of Simeon John and Rebecca Mira (Curtis) 
Dewey. His family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and he was graduated 
from the high school there in 1877. His first work was with a grain commission 
house in Kansas City. In 1879 he engaged with Chapman & Company in the 
railroad tie and timber business with headquarters at Glasgow, Missouri. In 1883 
he severed his connection with Chapman & Company to accept the appointment 
from President Arthur of postmaster at Glasgow, but resigned at the end of two 
years. After a short and successful period in the lumber business for himself, 
Mr. Dewey and his former employer, Mr. W. H. Chapman, joined in the organi- 
zation of the Chapman & Dewey Lumber Company, Incorporated, operating a 
number of mills along the Missouri River. This company was very successful 
from the beginning, and about the time that the railroad was completed between 
Kansas City and Memphis, it began to acquire tracts of virgin timber in Poinsett, 
Craighead and Mississippi counties, Arkansas. These operations were extended 
until the company at one time owned one hundred and five thousand acres. In 
1890 Mr. Dewey moved to Jonesboro and began operations for the company. 
He erected a saw mill at Marked Tree and followed this with two box factories 
at Jonesboro. The company was a pioneer in the use of cottonwood lumber for 
boxes. It has grown rapidly until it now is one of the largest manufacturers 
of hardwood lumber in the United States with mills and factories at Marked 
Tree and in that vicinity manufacturing lumber and box shooks. When the 
Chapman & Dewey Lumber Company began to buy Arkansas lands the officers 
of the company had little thought of any value other than the timber. The 
St. Francis River country was then about as wild in vegetation, game and popu- 
lation as any portion of the United States. Annual overflows shut down the saw 
mills and prevented cultivation except on the highest ridges. When the agita- 
tion for levees began, Mr. Dewey realized their value to the country, joined 
in the movement and for four years was a valuable member of the levee board. 
After the completion of the levee system, the company began selling cut-over land 
to actual settlers on easy terms, and developing plantations for itself, having 
about five thousand acres in cultivation in 1920. Mr. Dewey and Miss Eola 
Heryford were married in Glasgow, Missouri, November 14, 1883. Their chil- 
dren are: William Chapman and Henry Curtis Dewey. 



404 





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€. C. Bean 




,HARLES CRAWFORD DEAN, pioneer merchant, planter, 
banker and capitalist, Leland, Mississippi, was born near Sena- 
tobia, in Tate County, Mississippi, on January 28, 1858, the 
son of John M. and Martha E. Dean, an old and aristocratic 
family of Tate County. He received his education in public 
schools and attended Southwestern Baptist (now Union) Uni- 
versity at Jackson, Tennessee. At the age of twenty years he began work as 
clerk for Callicott, Veasey & Company at Coldwater, Mississippi. In 1891 he 
moved to Leland, and formed a partnership with B. O. McGee, his brother-in- 
law, under the name of McGee, Dean & Company. Since that time he has been 
continuously in the mercantile, planting and cotton business. The firm has con- 
tributed more toward the development of the town of Leland and surrounding 
country than any other institution, now being the largest and strongest cotton 
buying and exporing firm in the Delta, having branch buying offices at Greenwood 
and Clarksdale, Mississippi ; Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, 
and selling offices at Boston and New Bedford, Massachusetts ; Providence, 
Rhode Island ; Gastonia, North Carolina, and Liverpool, England. It enjoys a 
world-wide reputation for honest and fair dealing. His firm also owns and culti- 
vates approximately twenty thousand acres of rich Delta land which is highly 
improved and especially adapted to cotton, of which commodity they raise about 
twelve thousand bales annually. With no desire for public office, Mr. Dean was 
induced to become a member of the Board of Supervisors of Washington County, 
which position he has held for six years. He is now president of the board. He 
had never held other public office, except as a member of the Board of Trustees 
of the public schools, of which he is serving as president, and which is erecting a 
$125,000 school house. He has always stood ready to serve his community in 
whatever capacity he felt he could be of service. Mr. Dean is president of The 
McGee, Dean Company, Incorporated, which is the largest and strongest mercan- 
tile firm in the Delta, which store supplies the various plantations owned by his 
firm. He has served as vice-president of the Bank of Leland since its organization 
in 1899, which bank enjoys the reputation of being one of the largest and strong- 
est banking institutions of the State. He is vice-president of the Leland Hard- 
ware Company ; secretary and treasurer of the Leland Compress Company ; a 
stockholder of the Quinn Drug Company of Greenwood, Mississippi, is one of 
the largest landowners in the Delta and widely interested financially in various 
lines. Mr. Dean is a member of the Baptist Church, being a senior deacon, and 
takes much interest in religious affairs, and a public spirited citizen. On Decem- 
ber 28, 1897, he was married to Miss Capitola McGee. They have five children : 
Charles Otho, his son, is a graduate of the University of Virginia, Misses Capi- 
tola and Catherine are receiving their college education at Hollins College, Roan- 
oke, Virginia, and Misses Miriam and Carol are in school at home. 



409 



51 . J. Bains 



|ENRY JEFFERSON DAVIS, for many years one of the most 
active men in the development of Clarksdale, Mississippi, and 

Hwjtt recently a prominent factor in Memphis, Tennessee, was born 
W§W M° nroe County, Mississippi, the son of John Thomas and 
Mary (Cook) Davis. His father enlisted in the Second Missis- 
sippi regiment at the opening of the Civil War, and served till 
its close. After receiving a high school education, he went to the Mississippi 
Delta in 1886, and the following year became a traveling salesman, his employer 
recognizing his ability by gradually extending his territory over the entire Southern 
States. Mr. Davis was married in 1893 to Miss Pattie Belle Partee, and wishing 
to concentrate his work, secured another position with Mississippi Delta territory 
and Memphis headquarters. His first investment was a small one in the rich 
Delta land, but all the time, the Queen City, Clarksdale, seemed a place with a 
great future. Accordingly in 1905 Mr. Davis organized the Clarksdale Machin- 
ery Company, taking controlling stock himself, and being president and general 
manager of the business. His standing in the community was shown by the fact 
that many of the leading business men in Clarksdale took stock with him in this 
enterprise and his directors were the most substantial men in that town. Mr. Davis 
was interested in public affairs and took an active part in the development of 
Clarksdale. While serving as exalted ruler of the Elks Club, plans were made 
for the handsome new building that bears his name on the corner stone. He 
served as mayor of Clarksdale in 1909 and 1910, and the administration stands 
out for its efficiency from an economical point of view, and its cleanliness from 
a moral standpoint. A modern water and light plant was installed by the munici- 
pality and the paving of the streets had an auspicious beginning. The beautiful 
school building was completed and negotiations were begun which resulted in 
securing a Carnegie Library for the town. In 1913 Mr. Davis' state of health 
demanded a rest, so he sold his machinery business, and also the saw mill which 
he was then operating. After a period of recuperation he again engaged in the 
manufacture of lumber in Mississippi, but moved his residence to Memphis in 
order to keep in closer touch with the lumber market. He is now an active mem- 
ber of the Lumbermen's Club in Memphis, and from that place looks after his 
milling business in Mississippi and planting interests in Arkansas, having some 
time ago, with an associate, acquired a large body of land eight miles from Mem- 
phis near Hulbert. Mr. Davis holds automobile license No. 1 for Clarksdale, 
which is the souvenir of many amusing experiences. He retains a heavily signed 
petition asking him to keep off the public highways of Coahoma County, because 
his machine endangered the lives of occupants of horse-drawn vehicles. Mr. and 
Mrs. Davis have one surviving child, Marian, who has been prepared at St. Mary's 
School to continue her education in Washington. 



410 



. E. Carip 




jILLIAM RICHARDS EARLY, Indianola, Mississippi, banker, 
planter and business man, was born in Meridian, Mississippi, 
March 26, 1876, the son of E. V. and Laura R. Early. He 
received his education at Franklin Academy, Columbus, Mis- 
sissippi, and at Marion Military Institute, Marion, Alabama. 
In 1896 he located at Leland, where he began his career as a 
clerk for the Stovall Company at a salary of $10.00 per month and board. He 
remained there but a few months and then went to work for himself writing 
life insurance. In 1900 he formed a partnership with Senator W. B. Parks in 
the mercantile business at Merigold, and the following year was in the mercan- 
tile business on his own account. At the end of that time, he realized that there 
was an opening in the banking line in that fast-growing section of the country 
for more institutions and that he was fitted to succeed in that line. Other finan- 
ciers were of the same opinion, and in 1902, he, together with Mr. E. P. Peacock, 
president of the Bank of Clarksdale, and Mr. T. J. Portevent, organized the 
Shelby Bank, and Mr. Early went there as cashier of that institution. At the 
end of two years, his ability in that line had become so conspicuous that he was 
elected cashier of the Sunflower Bank of Indianola and went there to take the 
position. In that position he was a success from the first day, as he had been 
in the other lines that he had been in, and it was there that he found the oppor- 
tunity for his own development together with that of the bank. He pushed 
the business so rapidly that at the end of eight years the directors made him 
president of the institution. He has remained in that position ever since and 
has made of the Sunflower Bank not only one of the strongest financial con- 
cerns in the Mississippi Delta, but also one of the leading factors for the devel- 
opment of that wonderfully rich territory. Soon after his going to the Delta, 
Mr. Early appreciated that the fertility of the soil was the source of wealth to 
that section and he began acquiring choice tracts as he was able to do so. Now 
he is the possessor of more than five thousand acres of the best land to be found 
for the production of cotton, and is one of the leading planters of the Delta. 
In addition to his bank and plantation interests Mr. Early is a director in the 
Sunflower Compress Company and the Indianola Cotton Oil Company. He 
also has investments in many smaller institutions in that section organized for 
the more rapid development of that section. During the World War, he served 
as food administrator for Sunflower County. He is a member of the Episcopal 
Church and Hamassa Temple, Mystic Shrine. Mr. Early and Miss Pauline 
Baker were married, February 22, 1903. Their children are: Pauline, Laura 
Virginia, Frances Eugenia, Josephine Holmes, Mary Louise, Jean Kent and 
W. R. Early, Junior. 



415 



Healie jTletdjer 




[ESLIE FLETCHER, banker, retired planter and retired mer- 
chant, Indianola, Mississippi, was born in Madison County, 
Alabama, August 25, 1865, the son of Richard Mathew and 
Rebecca (Mason) Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher was able to get a 
little education up to the time that he was fourteen years of 
age, but at the end of that time went to work on a plantation 
which his father owned there. He remained there for seven years in that occu- 
pation, which precluded the opportunity for further school attendance, but a 
keen mind coupled with a rare capacity for observation and absorption has made 
Mr. Fletcher a well-rounded-out man of splendid information. When he became 
of age, he left home and went to work on his own account on a farm which he 
rented in his home county of Madison. He remained there for twenty years 
and was one of the best farmers and most substantial men in that fine old county, 
but in 1906 he realized that there were opportunities for a man of his talent in 
the Delta far superior to those of the hill country and hence moved to Indianola, 
near which then small town he had acquired a tract of some fourteen hundred 
acres of land. Since that time he has been one of the strongest factors in the 
material and moral development of Sunflower County and soon became recog- 
nized as one of the best planters in his section of the country. Until 1915 he 
devoted his time and attention to the plantation. At that time he was elected 
president of the Bank of Indianola, which position he still holds. The bank 
now has a capital stock of $50,000 and a surplus of $35,000, and is considered 
one of the strong and substantial financial institutions of the Delta. In 1917 
Mr. Fletcher bought the Indianola Mercantile Company and with that as a 
foundation organized the Indianola Grocery Company, through which he con- 
ducted for two years an active and successful wholesale grocery business 
throughout the central Delta section. However, in 1919, Mr. Fletcher justly 
felt that he had been in the front rank of active business campaigns long enough, 
and hence he sold the Farmers Grocery Company to Mr. M. D. Gilmer. He still 
retains some fifteen hundred acres of magnificent cotton and corn land, but he 
has turned that over to his two sons for management. He still retains the presi- 
dency of the Bank of Indianola and his financial interest in that institution, but 
has retired from active business and merely looks after these investments, 
together with the interest that he has in many lesser enterprises, mainly in Sun- 
flower County. He has never sought public office, but has served his city as a 
member of the board of aldermen. He has been a member of the Methodist 
Church since childhood. He and Miss Katie Burton were married November 
23, 1886. Their children are Miss Louise, Miss Lorine, W. B. and L. S. 
Fletcher. 



416 




o£ax ^fefe 



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jILLIAM BRAND HOFFA, Grenada, Mississippi, for more 
than a quarter of a century probably the most active man 
for the development of that city and the county of the same 
name, was born in the western portion of the county, May 2, 
1867, on Auvergne Plantation, near what was then the Choc- 
chuma and Tuscahoma ferries on Yalobusha River, the son 
of J. M. and Elizabeth Donelson (Martin) Hoffa. His great-grandfather 
Hoffa migrated from Germany to Pennsylvania about 1725, and Mr. W. B. Hofra 
is also of the Reed, McNair and McKnight stock, all prominent in the colonial 
and revolutionary affairs of that State. On his maternal side, Mr. Hoffa comes 
from the equally distinguished Donelson and Martin families of Tennessee. His 
mother was born in 1834 on the plantation where her son was born and which 
he still owns. She was a grand-niece of General Andrew Jackson and a daugh- 
ter of Colonel George W. Martin, who was General Jackson's secretary in the 
Natchez campaign and on General Coffee's staff at the battle of New Orleans. 
President Jackson placed Colonel Martin in charge of the United States land 
office at Chocchuma in 1833, then an important point in the development of that 
section of the country, now only a memory. Mr. Hoffa was educated in the 
common schools of Grenada County and spent a year at the Agricultural & 
Mechanical College, Starkville, Mississippi, but most of his present broad edu- 
cation comes from the influence of his cultured mother both directly and in 
inculcating into him the desire to mingle with people of education and refine- 
ment and to read good literature. When quite young Mr. Hoffa went into the 
general insurance business in Grenada. From that he developed into general 
promoting, but always in that line he had uppermost in his mind the development 
of Grenada into a real city and Grenada County into the foremost one in the 
State. In this line as well as in the personal investments that he made in tim- 
ber lands and plantations, he was eminently successful, until today he is one of 
the most substantial men in the county. For years he owned one of the most 
valuable timber tracts in the country and would not sell it until recently when a 
purchaser agreed in the contract to manufacture the lumber in Grenada. His 
pioneering for good roads was conspicuous and he is a life member in both the 
United States and Mississippi good roads associations. During the war there 
was not a meeting for any public purpose affecting his district which he did not 
attend. He was chairman of the council of national defense for Grenada 
County; of the first Y. M. C. A. war drive; of sales for the Fifth Liberty loan; 
for Grenada, Yalobusha and Montgomery counties in the war work fund 
drives, and very active in all other patriotic lines. Mr. Hoffa was married first 
to Miss Mary Crofford Moore. She died in 1901 and he and Miss Velma Per- 
rin Cloud were Married January 16, 1907. They have three children. 



421 



C $. ^errtn 




LIFTON HOLMES HERRIN, planter and merchant, Robin- 
sonville, Mississippi, brought to the Mississippi Delta a strong, 
clear mind, a sound physique, boundless energy and a sincere 
ambition to go to the front, but in his boyhood dreams at his 
home in the hills of Yazoo County, Mississippi, he did not 
even dream that his later life would be anything like what he 
has achieved. He was born near Yazoo City, June 25, 1872, the son of J. C. 
and Clara (Kennedy) Herrin. The circumstances of the family at that time 
were such that he was able to get but a very limited education in the county 
common schools, and at the age of thirteen years he went to the little town of 
Bentonia and began his career as a clerk in a drug store. He remained there 
for three years. In the meanwhile an elder brother, Mr. William K. Herrin, 
had migrated from the family home to the Delta and gone to work for Mr. C. L. 
Robinson, who owned then the magnificent plantation surrounding the town 
which was named for him- The elder brother had become assistant manager 
for Mr. Robinson, and he secured a position in the store for the younger brother. 
It was in 1888, at the age of sixteen years, that Mr. Herrin went to Robinson- 
ville as manager of and buyer for the plantation store, which also did a consid- 
erable business outside of Mr. Robinson's place. The two brothers remained 
with Mr. Robinson for ten years after the latter one went there, gradually 
having been entrusted with the management of the entire business. In 1898 
they leased the twenty-eight hundred acres that Mr. Robinson had in cultivation, 
at the same time taking over all of the stock in the store and all of the personal 
property. It was then that the two brothers had the first chance in their lives 
to make money for themselves, and they put all that was in them into the busi- 
ness at Robinsonville. Both were thoroughly equipped for the management of 
any plantation, and that one in particular. Under their energy it prospered 
from the day that they took charge of it until 1906, by which time they had 
acquired considerable property of their own. Mr. W. K. Herrin then moved 
to Clarksdale and Mr. C. H. Herrin continued to look after the business of the 
firm in Robinsonville. Together they bought the Ellerton Dorr plantation in 
the edge of Clarksdale for what then was a record price of $125.00 per acre. 
Now the firm of Herrin Brothers owns and operates some four thousand acres 
of land in Tunica and Coahoma counties. In addition to this, Mr. Herrin is a 
director in the Citizens Bank of Tunica and in the Tunica Cotton Company of 
Memphis ; and a stockholder in the Memphis Packing Corporation ; and the 
Country Club, the Friedman-Shultz Shoe Company, and the Valley Dry Goods 
Company of Clarksdale. He also has large interests in the Burkburnett oil field. 
He and Miss Mabel Ledbetter married September 15, 1908. They have no 
child. 



422 



J. JR. Utrfe 




'OHN MELCHOIR KIRK, Gunnison, Mississippi, leading 
planter and business man, is a native of the Delta, having been 
born September 1, 1859, on Waxhaw plantation, Bolivar 
County. His father was a native of South Carolina from the 
famous Waxhaw settlement, Lancaster District, which still 
boasts of the honor of having been Andrew Jackson's first 
home. The elder Mr. Kirk was one of the early settlers in the Delta, whither 
he had taken his slaves and begun to reduce to a state of cultivation the great- 
est wilderness and the most fertile land that the United States possessed. The 
younger Mr. Kirk followed in the footsteps of his father. He has been a tre- 
mendous factor in the wonderful development of the Delta. For more than 
half a century he has felt its sorrows and enjoyed its successes. He has seen it 
transformed from an occasional clearing on some high ridge, surrounded by 
dense forests and denser canebrakes into the high state of cultivation which it 
now enjoys and which men of his type are extending rapidly. He has strug- 
gled with the floods of the Mississippi River, even seen that mighty force change 
the original Waxhaw plantation from the left to the right side of the river, and 
its insignificant dykes grow into the magnificent levee system. Mr. Kirk attended 
the public schools of his native county of Bolivar, then went to the high school 
at Frankfort, Kentucky, and finished his education in the University of the 
South at Sewanee, Tennessee. At the age of twenty years he went to work on 
his father's plantation at Waxhaw, but at the end of seven years, he was given 
entire charge of the property then known as the Kirkland plantation, now owned 
by him. His real expansion began in 1894, when he bought the Melchoir place 
of two hundred and fifty acres. Two years later he acquired the Boykin Plan- 
tation of nine hundred and sixty acres. At different times he has bought three- 
fourths interest of the entire Stokes property, and recently acquired the best 
part of the Mary Mac plantation at Robinsonville, at a record price for Delta 
lauds. In all he had added twelve thousand acres to the original family estate 
and now cultivates six thousand seven hundred acres. He is not only one of 
the best cotton planters in the Delta country, but a pioneer for that section in 
the theory and practice of diversification. Mr. Kirk is the son of John Cousar 
and Edvinia Ann Kirk. He has married twice: first to Miss Bessie Shattuck, 
June 7, 1887, their children being John S. Kirk; Miss Mary, now Mrs. W. C. 
Adams of Corinth, Mississippi, and Miss Bessie, now Mrs. Pierce Ballou of 
Memphis. The first wife died in 1896 and Mr. Kirk and Miss Mary Embree 
Wall were married June 29, 1904. Their only child is Miss Elizabeth. Mr. Kirk 
is a Mason and a member of the Episcopal Church. He has traveled all over 
the United States, Europe, South America, Canada, Alaska and Hawaiian 
Islands. 



427 



Jofm M. Hatoler 




] ROM a small mercantile business at Dublin, Mississippi, in 
1907 on borrowed capital and a one-mule crop on rented land 
the following year, John Wilson Lawler has run his planta- 
tion up to about forty-three hundred acres, including the plan- 
tation on which he worked as manager only a few years ago 
for the salary of $25 per month. He was born in Coahoma 
County, Mississippi, December 22, 1875, the son of John Ernest and Martha 
Montgomery (Robinson) Lawler. When but a lad the family moved to Florida, 
where he attended the common schools, and academy at Leesburg. His education 
was continued at Emory College, Oxford, Georgia, under the direction of Bishop 
Candler, who was then the head of that institution. At twenty-one years of age 
he went to Epps, Alabama, rented twenty acres of land, and made one crop. 
The lure of the fertile Delta was too strong, and at the end of the first crop in 
Alabama he returned to Coahoma County, Mississippi. For a year he man- 
aged the J. R. Coates Plantation of eleven hundred acres at a salary of $25 per 
month. Four years ago he absorbed this plantation with his growing land 
interests. After a year on the Coates Plantation, Mr. Lawler worked as sales- 
man for a merchant, and later in various other lines of salesmanship until 1907. 
On December 6, 1906, he was married to Miss Medora Hilliard, only daughter 
of Capt. H. E. Hilliard of Dublin, Mississippi. In 1907 on the indorsement of 
Capt. Hilliard for $1,500 Mr. Lawler borrowed that amount from the Bank of 
Clarksdale and began business for himself as a merchant at Dublin. The next 
year he was a one-mule farmer on twenty acres of land that he rented and had 
worked in connection with his store. His crop was nine bales of cotton. The 
next year his lease holdings reached one hundred and twenty acres, the next 
six hundred acres, the next eight hundred and fifty acres, and in 1913 he was 
cultivating more than twenty-four hundred acres. After more than four years 
of these operations, he began buying lands with the earnings which had accrued 
from his planting of the leased lands. His first purchase was five hundred and 
thirty-four acres, the second, the Coates Plantation of eleven hundred acres. 
In 1916 he added the Lee property of fifteen hundred and eighty-two acres, and 
the Peacock place of one hundred and ninety-two acres, and in January, 1920, 
he bought eight hundred and seventy-five acres more, until now he owns about 
forty-three hundred acres, including the town of Dublin east of the railroad 
where his residence sits. He is a director in the Bank of Clarksdale and the 
Delta Grocery & Cotton Company, a stockholder in the Mississippi Valley Dry 
Goods Company, the Tom James Oil Company, and stockholder and president 
of the Coahoma County Cotton Company. Mr. Lawler was a member of the 
committee of five, who in four days without a subcommittee put Coahoma 
County over the top in the Victory loan for $1,368,950. 



428 




/Pt-.g, ctC^^z^L- 




. €. Eeafee 

! EMORY ERNEST LEAKE, Tupelo, Mississippi, one of the 
leading factors in the rapid growth along all good lines of that 
prosperous community, was born in Tupelo, September 20, 
1874, the son of Memory London and Lina (Coleman) Leake. 
He has lived there all of his life, except that during 1878 the 
family was living for a time at Holly Springs, Mississippi, 
when the terrible scourge of yellow fever swept over the South. His mother 
fell a victim to it there and he and his father refuged in Louisville, Kentucky, 
where the father died a few days later, leaving him an orphan at four years of 
age in a strange land. Mr. Leake says that he was tagged, valued as any other 
livestock and shipped by express to his uncle, Mr. H. C. Medford, at Tupelo. 
He was educated at the common schools in Tupelo and then went to the Uni- 
versity of Mississippi at Oxford, where he took the law course with the end in 
view of following in the footsteps of his uncle who was long one of the leaders 
of the bar in northeast Mississippi. He received his degree of bachelor of laws 
in 1900 and, returning to Tupelo, became the junior member of the law firm 
of Medford & Leake. He was engaged actively in the practice of that profes- 
sion and with great success for some eight or nine years, when his eyesight 
began to fail under the strain of constant use. He then began to give more and 
more of his time and attention to general business and less to the law. How- 
ever, Mr. Leake still practices with Mr. J. W. Boggan under the firm name of 
Boggan & Leake, but devotes most of his time and energy to the firm of Leake 
& Goodlett, wholesale and retail dealers in yellow pine lumber. He laughingly 
says that he is the short leaf and that Mr. Goodlett is the long leaf. It is one 
of the largest lumber concerns in northeast Mississippi. Mr. Leake is finan- 
cially interested in many other of the leading institutions in his section. For a 
long time he was a director in the First National Bank. Afterwards he was 
president of the Farmers Bank & Trust Company, and now he is president of 
the Peoples Bank & Trust Company. He is also president of the Auto Sales 
Company, and a director in the Mississippi Auto Company and in the Tupelo 
Insurance Agency. At the University of Mississippi, he was a member of the 
Delta Tau Delta Greek letter fraternity, is a member of the Knights of Pythias 
and has taken one Masonic degree. For many years Mr. Leake has been a 
member of the Missionary Baptist Church and one of the most active members 
of the Tupelo congregation of that denomination. He is a deacon in the church, 
was for a time superintendent of the Sunday School and now is superintendent 
of the junior department of the Sunday School. Mr. Leake and Miss Laura 
Emma Hunter were married, July 23, 1900. The union has been blessed with 
five children : Shirley, Medford, Martelle, Memory and Robert. 



433 



ft. 3. Mixon 




I UGH IVY MIXON, Marianna, Arkansas, one of the leading 
bankers and business men of eastern Arkansas, was born near 
Marianna, November 19, 1874, the son of Dr. John Wesley 
and Frances Elizabeth (Jones) Mixon. He was educated in 
Searcy, Arkansas, and finished in the old Searcy College in 
1892. Returning to Marianna he took charge of the books of 
Mixon Brothers. He remained there for ten years and then took an active part 
in organizing the Bank of Marianna, of which he was chosen cashier. He has 
remained in that position ever since. However, his activities ramify almost the 
entire range of his section. Aside from being a stockholder in the Bank of 
Marianna, he is a stockholder in the Johnston-Cox-Mann Company, a leading 
wholesale grocery in that section. He is also a director in the Miller Lumber 
Company, a pioneer manufacturing concern in Marianna and Mr. Mixon owns 
a controlling interest in the Mixon-Mitchener Company, a general insurance 
agency which is easily the ranking agency in Marianna. He was one of the men 
who organized the Soudan Corporation and bought the Soudan Plantation of 
5,500 acres, one of the most valuable pieces of property in the St. Francis Basin. 
He is a stockholder in several smaller corporations. In the capacity of treasurer 
or collector Mr. Mixon handles through his bank all the funds of the county 
and city, road and drainage districts, the St. Francis Levee board and a number 
of local improvement districts. He is actively interested in the subject of 
education and for the past ten years has served as secretary of the local school 
board to whose efforts was due the erection of the handsome high school build- 
ing in the city. He was one of three who headed the movement to secure a 
charter for an Elks' lodge at Marianna and was placed on the building com- 
mittee which erected the beautiful home the lodge now owns and occupies. 
Some ten years ago the members of the Baptist Church in Marianna constructed 
a house for worship at a cost of $30,000. Mr. Mixon was a member of the 
building committee and was one of a small number who shouldered the respon- 
sibility of the inevitable church debt which existed at the completion of the 
edifice. After a few years' struggle under the handicap of this heavy obligation 
it was realized that no progress could be made, so a meeting was held at which 
Mr. Mixon acted as chairman and within an hour the amount was subscribed 
and immediately paid, so that today the church property, now valued at $50,000, 
is entirely free of incumbrance. During the World War, Mr. Mixon was chair- 
man of the War Savings Stamp sales for Lee County and also fuel administra- 
tor for the same county. He is a Mason and an Elk. Mr. Mixon and Miss Lida 
Mae Clarke of Marianna were married February 22, 1899. They have three 
children, Hugh Clarke, Miss Hattie Mae and Miss Pauline Mixon. 



434 





c^r^ 



m p. iSicftolg 




ITH nothing but his own industry upon which to rely, Mr. Wal- 
ter B. Nichols of Clark'sdale, Mississippi, has worked up to 
where he plants six thousand acres of land in Mississippi and 
Louisiana, and to where his personal and business standing 
is second to none amongst his friends, neighbors and acquaint- 
ances. He was born in DeSoto County, Mississippi, October 
20, 1868, and at the age of twenty years, branched out as manager of Major 
J. A. Kirby's plantation at Penton, Mississippi. After fourteen years of valu- 
able service there for his employer, he became his own boss as planter and mer- 
chant near Tunica, Mississippi. In 1908, he moved from there to Alligator, in 
Bolivar County, Mississippi. There he leased the Pritchett and the McCraney 
properties, and also opened a mercantile house. By 1914 he had saved enough 
to begin investing his own money, and he from knowledge and experience was 
certain that Delta lands were the best investment in the world. He bought the 
Hannah property, near Clarksdale. The following year he acquired the Pritchett 
place which he had been leasing and operating, and later bought the Rotiquenta 
and Hunter plantations in Concordia Parish, Louisiana. Now he owns three 
fine plantations, with a separate business on each of them. With all of this 
expansion, Mr. Nichols has the rare distinction of never having asked exten- 
sion upon a note. This habit and the known solid foundation of his investments 
have given him a credit and business standing of which any man justly may be 
proud. In 1915, having bought stock in the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company, 
he moved to Clarksdale, where he erected a beautiful residence. He is now a 
vice-president of the Johnson-Harlow Lumber Company. He is a stockholder 
in the Planters Bank. He owns Nichols & Company at Alligator; a half interest 
in W. B. & V. A. Nichols of Roseacre, Mississippi, and eighty-five per centum 
of the Clayton Planting Company of Clayton, Louisiana. Together the planta- 
tions owned and controlled by him aggregate no less than six thousand acres, 
and the business at each of them is conducted with the same honesty and capacity 
that have been his standards through life. He is strictly a self-made man and 
has the fullest respect and esteem in every community where he is known. He 
is a member of the Methodist Church, exalted ruler of the Benevolent and Pro- 
tective Order of Elks, Lodge No. 977 ; of the Coahoma County Chamber of 
Commerce; the Clarksdale Rotary Club, and the Clarksdale Outing Club. He 
has never sought office. Mr. Nichols and Miss Elma C. Scott were married 
January 5, 1899. The issue of that union consists of three boys, Walter Scott 
Nichols, Ira Barnes Nichols and Alva Earl Nichols. His parents were Joseph 
Sumner and Sarah J. Nichols. 



439 



J. 3. ffloavt 




JOHN IKE MOORE, Helena, Arkansas, lawyer, banker and for 
many years one of the leading men in eastern Arkansas along 
all progressive and good lines, is a native of Mississippi. He 
was born in Lafayette County, February 7, 1856, the son of 
E. D. and Nancy A. Moore. When he was but one year old 
the family moved to Helena, where he has lived ever since. 
After having gone through the public schools of Phillips County he went to the 
University of Arkansas in 1877 and in 1881 was graduated from the academic 
department. In the following year he spent five months at Cumberland Uni- 
versity in Lebanon, Tennessee, which for more than two generations has been 
the alma mater of so many of the great lawyers of this section of the country. 
Returning home, he was admitted to the bar in 1882. From the beginning of 
his career he has taken a very active part in the public affairs of his State, not 
in the way of seeking lucrative offices out of which to make an easy living, but 
accepting positions where he could be of service to the people. He began his 
first term in the Legislature of the State only one year after having been admit- 
ted to the bar, thus beginning a public career which for nearly forty years has 
been most beneficial to the entire State. During ten years in the legislature he 
stood out strongly for everything that was good and constructive and ever was 
efficient in his opposition to all that was for private instead of public weal. He 
returned to the Legislature in 1901 and again in 1903, when he served as 
speaker of the house. In the meanwhile he had served his country from 1894 
to 1900 as county and probate judge, probably the most important office in 
Arkansas so far as the progress and welfare of each county is concerned. He 
was elected in 1905 and again in 1913 to the State Senate, and by reason of 
being the presiding officer of that body in 1907, he served for four months as 
acting governor of the State during the early portion of the disability of the 
Honorable Sebastian Little. However, the public service to which Mr. Moore 
points with the most justifiable pride is the part that he took in the construc- 
tion of the magnificent capitol of the State. From 1909 to 1917 he was one of 
the five commissioners which had charge of that work. He was also a member 
of the Constitutional Convention in 1918, and from the beginning of the delib- 
erations of that august body was recognized as one of its real leaders. For 
many years he was one of the most active men in securing governmental aid 
for the levee system from the point of Crowley's Ridge to Laconia Circle. He 
is also president of the Peoples Savings Bank & Trust Company. Mr. Moore 
and Mrs. Gant, formerly Miss Maie Davidson, were married in 1887 in Helena, 
Arkansas. They have one son, John Ike Moore, Junior. Mrs. Moore is a 
former president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs. 



440 




i^^ <$rf{~ 




(Zx^U^a^^ya^ 



C. m $artee, &t\ 




JHARLES WATKINS PARTEE, SENIOR, Belen, Mississippi, 
for more than a third of a century one of the conspicuous men 
in Quitman County in the development of her fertile lands along 
Cassidy's Bayou, and in the elevation of the moral tone of the 
community, was born in Gibson County, Tennessee, March 22, 
ki^CKS^iS^ 1 1844, the son of Squire Boon and Martha Alexander (Doug- 
las) Partee. In about 1847 or 1848, the family moved to Mississippi and settled 
on the beautiful plateau a few miles to the northeast of Como, where the elder 
Mr. Partee became a planter of much consequence, acquiring large tracts of land 
and many slaves. The son was educated in the common schools of Panola 
County and remained on his father's plantation until the breaking out of the 
Civil War. But at seventeen years of age he was full of courage and chafed 
under the refusal of his parents to his request for permission to join Captain 
John R. Dickens' company, the Sardis Blues. Mr. Partee had a brother in 
that company and the parents finally consented to his joining, which he did at 
Union City, Tennessee, where quite a lot of Confederates were drilling. This 
command became Company F, Twelfth Mississippi Infantry, C. S. A. They 
were rushed to Virginia, arriving just in time to miss the first battle of Bull 
Run, but in time to guard the prisoners taken there. The company was in the 
battle of Seven Pines, in which the brigade lost fifty per centum in killed and 
wounded of its strength. After the second battle of Manassas, Mr. Partee went 
to Mississippi and helped his father move a large number of his slaves and live- 
stock to the Delta, locating on Lost Lake five miles from where Belen now is. 
Mr. Partee's father, long before the war, had realized that the fertile Delta 
lands would become of great value, and as fast as he made money, he invested 
it in Delta land and negroes. Mr. Partee joined Jace Floyd's independent 
cavalry company which operated around Memphis regulating some conditions 
which had arisen in that vicinity and then became Company H of Alex. Chal- 
mers' Battalion, which still later became the Eighteenth Mississippi Cavalry, 
C. S. A. This regiment did valiant service under General Forrest in the battles 
of Harrisburg, Tishomingo Creek or Bryce's Crossroads, and was with him to 
the end at Gainesville, Alabama. Mr. Partee's father died during the war and 
a lot of his Delta lands were forfeited for non-payment of taxes. Mr. Partee 
had five brothers in the Confederate army: A. Y., R. D., Hiram, J. K. P. and 
S. B. Partee, Junior. He and Miss Elizabeth Jackson were married October 
22, 1871. They have five children: C. W. Partee, Junior, Mrs. H. J. Davis, 
Mrs. I. C. Denton, Mrs. G. O. Denton and Mrs. W. H. Hardy. He now owns 
a comfortable home and plantation in Quitman County, and over in Rankin 
County, Mississippi, has a large tract of land which he has made into a stock 
farm. 



445 



. a. aeutcfne 




IILLIAM ALBERT RITCHIE is just completing the first score 
of his residence in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and they have been 
active years, in which he has added no small part to the devel- 
opment of the community and accumulated much of this earth's 
goods for himself. He was born August 26, 1885, at Wingo, 
Kentucky, the son of Arthur W. and Mary Walker Ritchie. He 
attended the grammar and high schools in Kentucky and in 1904 moved to the 
more active city of Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he still resides, and probably 
always will. He formed a partnership with Mr. Oscar Carr, becoming the junior 
member of the firm of Carr & Ritchie. It is the oldest real estate firm in Clarks- 
dale and has from the first done a big business in Clarksdale city property, and in 
Delta farm and timber lands. All of these lines have increased in volume greatly of 
recent years and the business is still growing at a rapid rate. In addition to this 
land dealing, the firm has added that of investments in high-class securities. It 
also is interested in various mercantile concerns and in planting some of the 
finest cotton lands in the Delta. Mr. Ritchie has invested heavily of his private 
fortune in some of the strongest concerns in his section. He is a stockholder in 
the Planters Bank, which stock is generally considered about the best and safest 
investment in Coahoma County. He is also interested financially in the Johnson- 
Harlow Lumber Company ; in the Lombardy Planting Company, whose lands on 
Sunflower River are surpassed by none in fertility ; in the Belen Planting Com- 
pany, and where can better land be found than on Lost Lake and Cassidy's 
Bayou?; in the Mississippi Valley Dry Goods Company; in the Friedman-Shultz 
Shoe Company ; in the Clarksdale Realty Company, and in Oakridge Cemetery 
Company. Mr. Ritchie has shown his sound judgment in the class of lands in 
which he has invested his own means, and proved it innumerable times in the 
statements which he has made to intending purchasers. Now he is recognized 
as one of the best posted men in his section on the actual worth as well as value 
of real estate. This information, coupled with his industry and sterling honesty, 
is of great value to the man who goes to his office either to sell or to buy land. 
That this value is appreciated is reflected in the growing volume of the con- 
cern's business. Mr. Ritchie is recognized not only as one of the most active, 
but also as one of the best citizens of Coahoma County. He is a staunch member 
of the Presbyterian Church, and lives a life very close to the strict tenets of that 
denomination. He is also a devoted Mason, having taken both the York and 
Scottish Rites, being a Knight Templar in the one and having taken the thirty- 
second degree in the other. In addition to these he is a member of the Shrine, 
an Elk, a Rotarian and of the Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Ritchie has never 
married. 



446 




xJ(ZSI^^y&ts>T^&4T/f~. 



£§>am &embert 




JAM REMBERT, planter, Memphis, Tennessee, with cotton 
acreage in three states tributary to Memphis, was born in 
Shelby County, just out from Woodstock, Tennessee, July 1, 
1845, the son of Samuel S. and Anne (Duncan) Rembert. 
His father had moved to the Woodstock section in 1800 when 
the State of Tennessee was but four years of age and when 
what now is Memphis was but a small landing for flatboats on the Mississippi 
River. Like so many other of the most refined Southern children and women, 
Sam Rembert was an emigre to Canada during the Civil War and received his 
education in the University of Canada in Toronto. He also took a course in 
a commercial college there. Returning to Tennessee, he began planting cotton 
in 1868 on a two hundred and forty-six-acre tract near Woodstock, which he 
still retains. He sold cotton for five and six cents per pound, less than the seed 
in a bale of cotton later was worth, and then he threw away the seed if he was 
fortunate enough to find a place to dump them. But even under those condi- 
tions he prospered. In 1884 he rented from the then leading cotton firm of 
Thomas H. Allen & Company some six hundred acres of land on Hushpuckena 
Creek in Bolivar County, Mississippi, which had belonged to and been cleared up 
by Andrew Jackson Donelson, secretary to General Jackson. He cultivated that 
place for two seasons. His real investments in the Mississippi Delta began 
in 1898, when Mr. Rembert bought some three thousand acres on the Missis- 
sippi River front in the upper portion of Bolivar County. He has owned that 
land ever since and has developed it to where it is one of the best plantations on 
the river. It is near the famous Waxhaw Plantation of Mr. John Kirk, one of 
the oldest and most productive in the Delta. Mr. Rembert made his home on 
this plantation for many years, but as the hand of time began resting more 
heavily upon his shoulders he ceased to care for the strenuous life of managing 
so large an estate and gradually has passed the details of this place over to 
his son, Sam, Junior, who lives upon it. He is also the owner of a smaller 
tract of fine alluvial land in the lower portion of Mississippi County, Arkansas, 
near Wilson, and of several farms in Shelby County. Mr. Rembert spends most 
of his time in Memphis, making his home with his daughter, Mrs. Busby. He 
retains the active management of the Arkansas and Tennessee property in his 
own hands because one of his inherent energy cannot stand to be idle. He also 
makes occasional trips to the Mississippi Delta, spending some time with his 
son in the general supervision of the big plantation there. He is a member of 
St. Mary's Episcopal Church. Mr. Rembert has never sought or held any 
political office. He and Miss Nannie Brown were married in the early seventies. 
She died in 1885, leaving two children, Sam, Junior, and Miss Mamie Lee. now 
Mrs. J. J. Busby. 



451 



M. &. &toatn 




IILLIAM BEAUREGARD SWAIN, Hollyknowe, Mississippi, 
one of the most energetic men in the development of the fer- 
tile Mississippi Delta, and until he retired from most of his 
active operations, one of the largest cotton raisers in the 
world, is a native of Holmes County, Mississippi, where he 
was born August 20, 1861, the son of S. R. and Harriet A. 
Swain. Growing up during the Civil War and the wreck of reconstruction which 
followed in its wake, he was able to get no education save a little in the com- 
mon schools of his home county. At the age of fourteen years he went to work 
on the farm of his father and remained there until he was twenty-one years of 
age. Then he went to the Mississippi Delta, rented a place of one hundred 
acres near Stoneville, in Washington County, and went to work for himself. 
There was more land in that country then than anything else with the exception 
of water, for the three consecutive great floods of 1882, 1883 and 1884 swept at 
will over and through the insignificant levees of that day, bankrupting many 
who owned cleared lands and placing them on the market for sale for taxes, 
while the wild lands had but little value. When Mr. Swain first went on Bogue 
Phalia there was not more than one hundred acres of land cleared between 
what are now Shaw and Leland, the cultivating being on the higher river front 
and along the highest banks of the bayous and Deer Creek. Mr. Swain was 
one of those strong hearted men of vision who realized from the time that he 
saw the fertility of the soil that the hardy race of men who had migrated west 
along that parallel of latitude would not let that source of wealth and useful- 
ness to the world lie idle — that they would surmount the obstacles. And he 
bore a man's part in that heroic work. They who now view the level fields of 
cotton in the Delta from the window of a Pullman car, or from an automobile 
speeding on a concrete road through miles of land cultivated like a garden do 
not realize the fortitude and resources required of men of Mr. Swain's type in 
attacking the virgin forests of cane, giant oaks and larger gum trees with a 
cross-cut saw, an ax, a sledge, a wedge and a brand of fire, and yet between 
1887 and 1915, Mr. Swain bought nearly ten thousand acres of land almost 
entirely covered with virgin forests and reduced all of it to the highest state of 
cultivation, a record equalled by few if any other man in the Mississippi Delta. 
In 1917 and 1918, Mr. Swain sold all of his holdings except one thousand acres 
at his home on Bogue Phalia which he cultivates largely to have something to 
occupy his time. He also owns a delightful summer home in Colorado. He is 
a member of the Baptist Church in Leland and of the Elks Lodge in Green- 
ville. Mr. Swain and Miss Mamie Hobbs were married December 30, 1903. 
They have three children: W. B., Junior; Miss Jeffie Clair, and W. D. Swain. 



452 




^<&^_^ 



Clarence &. £§>mitf) 




LARENCE R. SMITH has the distinction of having built up 
in Cleveland, Mississippi, and of now operating what not only 
is one of the largest and most completely organized retail mer- 
chandise establishments in the entire State of Mississippi, but 
also what probably is the largest department store located in 
any town in the United States of the size of Cleveland. Mr. 
Smith was born March 9, 1866, in DeSotoville, Alabama, the son of Louis R. 
and Susan Smith. He was able to secure only a common school education and 
at the age of seventeen years moved to Mississippi and began his career there 
in construction work on the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad. He put in two 
and a half years in that line of work and then turned toward mercantile lines. 
He spent three years as a clerk in the general store of T. B. Johnson at Cleve- 
land, and then went into the drug business for himself under the name of C. R. 
Smith, which later was to become almost a synonym for "merchant" in Bolivar 
County. At the end of a couple of years he disposed of his drug business and 
for a dozen years sold fire insurance. Having saved some of the money that he 
made out of the insurance business, he began planting cotton and opened a mer- 
cantile establishment under his own name of C. R. Smith in 1903. From the 
first the energy and natural bent for merchandising that Mr. Smith put into 
the business told. The following year the first portion of what is now the Smith 
Block was constructed, and four years later the business had developed to the 
point where an addition was necessary, and still four years later, his stock and 
patronage required another enlargement of the establishment. The building 
now covers a ground space of eighty-five by one hundred and forty-five feet, 
two stories high, with a warehouse forty by one hundred and twenty-two feet. 
The seven departments in which every need of each customer can be filled crowd 
this space to capacity, while the arrangement for each of the departments is 
perfect for the service of the customers and the ease and rapidity with which 
the clerks can handle the goods. Mr. Smith went to Cleveland when the identi- 
cal spot where his big store now stands was a brake of big blue cane. He had 
been a big factor in its every development from that date to this. He has served 
three terms as mayor of the city, and for four years represented his county in 
the State Legislature. He was a member of the Mississippi (Lower) Levee 
Board for a term, from 1910 to 1914, filling the important post of president of 
that body. He is a director in the Valley Grocery Company, a stockholder in the 
Bolivar Compress Company, and many other enterprises, as well as a large 
owner of land and town property, and a member of the Methodist Church. He 
and Miss Mamie Williams married November 22, 1893. Mrs. Guy B. McLe- 
more is their only child. 



457 



Sebastian Straub 




EBASTIAN STRAUB, merchant, planter, manufacturer and 
one of the most efficient citizens of Helena, Arkansas, along 
all lines of progress not only for the city itself, but also for 
the entire community, was born in that city February 14, 1874, 
the son of Nicholas and Carrie Straub. He attended the pub- 
lic schools of the city for a short time, but at the age of fifteen 
years quit school to go to work in the store of his father. When he was eighteen 
years of age his father died and the courts made Mr. Straub of legal age so that 
he might be able to take official charge of the business with his brother, W. N. 
Straub. They operated a general merchandise store under the firm name of 
N. Straub Sons Mercantile Company until 1919, when it was formally incor- 
porated with that name. W. N. Straub was made president ; J. P. Rider, vice- 
president, and Sebastian Straub, secretary and treasurer, and since that time 
the progress of the concern has been steadily upward. At the same time Mr. 
Straub and his brother formed the firm of W. N. & S. Straub, to which were 
transferred the cotton planting and supply interests of the other company. 
They have large plantations in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana aggregating 
eleven thousand acres, of which five thousand are in cultivation, three thousand 
acres cut-over and three thousand acres in virgin timber. Mr. Straub is president 
of the Helena Building & Loan Association with a capital stock of $1,250,000; 
the Helena Cotton Oil Mill, with a capital of $200,000; the Eastern Arkansas 
Oil & Gas Company, with a capital of $100,000; the Lucky Dog Mining Com- 
pany of St. Joe, Arkansas, for mining zinc ore in Searcy County, with a capital 
of $15,000; the Helena-Ferguson Road District, for which $1,900,000 has been 
raised by the sale of bonds for the building of sixty-two miles of concrete roads 
through Phillips County ; the Beaver Bayou Drainage District, which has opened 
thirty-six miles of canals ; the Long Lake Drainage District which has recently 
been organized, and of the Rotary Club ; a director in the Helena Board of Trade ; 
the Security Bank & Trust Company ; the Lewis Mill Supply Company, and 
the Citizens Ice Company; a holder of stock in the Interstate National Bank, 
the First National Bank and the Security Bank & Trust Company. He is also 
treasurer and tax collector for the Cotton Belt Levee Company. He is a mem- 
ber of the executive committee of the Business Men's League, and chairman 
of the Helena Terminal Association Board, which is doing so much to rejuvenate 
the river traffic and thus maintain freight rates on a reasonable basis. He is a 
past grand knight of the Knights of Columbus, and a member of the City Club. 
During the recent Elaine riots he was acting sheriff and chairman of the Com- 
mittee of Seven. Mr. Straub and Miss Marie Wortham of Memphis were mar- 
ried July 13, 1899. Their children are Sebastian, Junior, and Charles W. Straub. 



458 




^g^s ■^/•&-*t«£j«U/ -As^T^Le^ 




J^L^T^Cc^t^c^ 0\J, >/o- 



3 . ©♦ ftotouer 




IUSTIN DEWEY TOWNER, doctor of dental surgery, Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, one of the leading practitioners and teachers 
of dentistry in the Mid-South, was born in Lynnville, Tennessee, 
May 12, 1877, the son of Justin Dewey and Samantha (Bugg) 
Towner. He attended the public schools of Giles County until 
he was twelve years of age and then went to Martin College 
in Pulaski, where he remained from 1889 to the spring of 1892. The next year 
he spent at the Webb Brothers School in Bellbuckle, Tennessee, and during the 
terms from the fall of 1893 to the spring of 1895, he was a pupil of the Wall & 
Mooney School in Franklin, Tennessee. From there he went to the Vander- 
bilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, where he was graduated in 1898 with 
the degree of D. D. S. He practiced dentistry at Pulaski from the time that he 
got his license until January, 1903, with signal success but at the end of that time 
he felt that he was able to occupy with the same degree of success a larger field 
and hence moved to Memphis. He brought with him a thorough equipment, 
ample experience, confidence in his ability 'and a determination to go to the top. 
His efficiency was recognized by the profession almost from the time that he 
opened his office here and it was but a short time before the public generally 
came to the same conclusion. His clientele has grown steadily until now, judged 
both by its numbers and by its class, it probably is unsurpassed by that of any 
dentist in the Mid-South. Doctor Towner was not content with the mere prac- 
tice of his profession, lucrative though it was, but was anxious to do something 
else in the world, even at a financial loss to himself. In 1909 he organized the 
College of Dentistry of the University of Memphis and was its dean until two 
years later, when it was merged with the University of Tennessee and became 
the School of Dentistry of that larger institution. Immediately upon the merger 
he established and taught the chair of mouth hygiene, oral prophylaxis and 
pyorrhea. Doctor Towner is a member of the Memphis Dental Society, the 
Tennessee State Dental Association, the National Dental Association, and Acad- 
emy of Periodontists, the Delta Sigma Delta dental college Greek letter frater- 
nity and the Alpha Tau Omega college literary and social fraternity. He takes 
a keen interest in the affairs generally of the community and is the representa- 
tive of the dental profession in that active body of men who compose the Rotary 
Club. He is also an active member of the Chamber of Commerce and is a mem- 
ber of the Memphis Country Club. He is a member of the Travel Club of 
America and as such has for a long time been a systematic and most extensive 
traveler of his native country. Doctor Towner and Miss Mary Estelle Wall of 
Franklin, Tennessee, were married October 27, 1898. They have two children : 
Annie Mary Towner and Justin Dewey Towner, Junior. 



463 



£. P. OToollarb 




jRURY BOYCE WOOLLARD, planter and merchant, Clarke- 
dale, Arkansas, for thirty years one of the leading factors in 
the development of the upper end of Crittenden County, was 
born in Senatobia, Tate County, Mississippi, January 23, 1868, 
the son of Leander Guy and Mary Elizabeth (Boyce) Wool- 
lard. The Woollard family is an old one in northwestern Mis- 
sissippi and for many years has been prominent in the development both of the 
hill and later of the Delta section of that State. Mr. Woollard was educated in 
the common schools of Tate County, but left home at the age of twenty years 
and went to Arkansas, where in 1889 he formed an association with the Clarke 
family of Peoria, Illinois, which has endured almost unbroken for more than 
thirty years and through two generations of his family and three of the Clarke 
family. Mr. C. B. Clarke had acquired a large tract of land at what now is 
Clarkedale and was then beginning to open it up for cultivation. Mr. Woollard 
first became the assistant manager of the plantation in 1889 and remained there 
for three years. At the end of that time he accepted a position as manager of the 
J. B. Adams plantation in the older and more highly developed Arkansas River 
country and remained there for two years and then he returned home where he 
spent three years on the farm of his mother. He had lived too long in the fer- 
tile level lands of the low countries to be satisfied again with the hills and in 
1896 he returned to Clarkedale. In the meanwhile Mr. C. B. Clarke had died 
and the plantation had passed to the possession of Mr. Sumner R. Clarke. 
Mr. Woollard continued in active charge of the plantation during the entire 
time that this Mr. Clarke owned it and also for a time after he died and the 
estate passed into the hands of Mr. Robert D. Clarke. When he assumed full 
charge of the property in 1896, only fifteen hundred of the thirty-eight hundred 
acres were in cultivation. He cleared up twenty-three hundred acres and when 
Mr. R. D. Clarke offered the major portion of the plantation for sale, it was 
generally rated as being the most highly developed plantation in that section of 
the county and as being in the highest state of tilth. In the meanwhile Mr. Wool- 
lard had acquired some eighteen hundred acres of his own adjoining the Clarke 
place, and his wife having died in the summer of 1918, he gave up the active 
management of the Clarke property for the purpose of inspiring his sons to do 
something for themselves in the development of the family property. Mr. Clarke 
sold the major portion of his property, but retained one thousand acres adjoin- 
ing Mr. Woollard's land and since that time he and Mr. Woollard have been 
equal partners in that. Mr. Woollard and Miss Annie Lafayette Slaton were 
married October 11, 1893. Their three children are: Oliver Slaton, Leander 
Guy and Drury Boyce W r oollard, Junior. 



464 




Jffb'TYwuyL 




a. 0. Purton 




UGUSTUS OTEY BURTON, planter and real estate man, 
Blytheville, Arkansas, is a native of that State, having been 
born July 17, 1873, in Jackson County, near Newport, the son 
of Thomas Jefferson and Clara N. Burton. He attended the 
public schools but at an early age started out to make his own 
way in the world, and he has succeeded in making it a most 
successful one. He came to Memphis when he was nineteen years of age and 
secured a job as a clerk in a retail grocery store. He was doing well in that place 
but he yearned for his native State, and after two years he moved up to Osceola, 
Arkansas, and went into the retail grocery store of the Pullen Company. He 
remained with that firm for five years, when he had accumulated enough to go 
into business for himself and he then opened a retail grocery store under the 
name of A. O. Burton. In this venture he was successful. From the time that 
he went into business on his own hook, his progress up the ladder of success 
was steady and certain. In 1902 he went into the wholesale grocery business 
under the name of the Burton Commission Company. He remained in Osceola 
for two years following this and then cast his eye toward the more progressive 
city of Blytheville, where he organized the Arkansas Grocery Company, whole- 
sale grocers, of which he was vice-president and general manager. This institu- 
tion under his guiding spirit has developed into one of the strong commercial 
institutions in northeastern Arkansas. By this time he had expanded to a point 
where his vision was not confined to the selling of groceries. He had the fore- 
sight to realize that the magnificent lands of Mississippi County were the cheap- 
est in the country in proportion to their actual value based upon earning capacity, 
and he backed his judgment by investing in them from time to time until now 
he is the owner of some two thousand acres in a high state of cultivation, and 
in addition to this some six hundred acres of cut-over timber land. In 1907 
he retired from the active management of the grocery concern and entered the 
real estate business, in which he still is engaged. Mr. Burton does not indulge 
in an overflow of words and promises, but is decidedly a man of action, public 
spirited and liberal. Show him a proposition in which his home community 
may be benefited and he puts money, energy and religion into it. Modest in his 
demeanor, a good listener and an active doer, his counsel is sought as often as 
any one of many who are making local history. Mr. Burton is one of the type 
of men who are known by their works. During the war he took a most active 
part in war work for his section of Arkansas. Mr. Burton and Miss Joe Bert 
Mayo of Memphis were married January 26, 1899. Their children are A. O. 
Burton, Junior, born in 1907, and Mayo Burton, born in 1910. 



469 



. 3- Prastfjears; 




IILLIAM IRVIN BRASHEARS, Memphis, Tennessee, for- 
merly successful railroad man, banker, merchant, cotton planter 
and saw mill operator, and now equally so as an oil producer, 
lumber dealer and cotton factor, is a native of Mississippi. He 
was born in Pike County, February 28, 1872, the son of 
George Miller and Lou Brashears. He received his education 
in the common schools of the neighboring county of Amite in the far interior 
town of Gillsburg. Early in life he went to work for the Yazoo & Mississippi 
Valley Railroad system as a telegrapher, and in that capacity worked for the 
company at a number of stations. In the course of that line of work he landed 
at Gunnison in the fertile Yazoo Delta, where he also became agent at the local 
depot. He saw in the timber standing on the land and in the cotton produced 
where it was cleared a rare opportunity and the foundation for great wealth in 
the community and began to take an interest in affairs other than those con- 
nected with the railroad. In 1911 he became cashier of the Bank of Gunnison 
and not long afterwards secured an interest in the Gunnison Mercantile Com- 
pany. He was efficient and prospered in both of these enterprises and in 1914 
sold his interest in them and acquired some two thousand acres of land at Pace, 
Mississippi, of which thirteen hundred acres were in timber and the remainder 
open for planting. He placed a saw mill on the timber land, and renting five 
hundred acres in addition to the seven hundred acres of open land which he 
owned, went extensively into both the mill and planting business on his own 
account. The lumber line of the business offered more outlet for the intense 
activity of a man like Mr. Brashears than did the planting line and in 1916 he 
sold the open land, retaining the mill and timberland. About the same time he 
expanded his milling business by buying a mill at Drew, Mississippi. He oper- 
ated both of these mills during 1917 and 1918, and during that time he came to 
Memphis and organized the Chisca Lumber Company as an outlet for his own 
product as well as to engage in the hardwood lumber business generally. It is 
one of the leading concerns in this section of the country dealing in hardwoods. 
In 1917 he also was active in the organization of the Scott-Thomas Cotton Com- 
pany, prominent cotton factors in Memphis. In the fall of 1919 he began to look 
into the oil fields of Texas and bought leases on some four thousand acres near 
Wichita Falls with such judgment as to location that when he contracted for 
the drilling of five wells on five acres on a fifty-fifty basis, he brought in five 
wells. Now he has eight wells, is the president of the Delta Oil & Refining 
Company, a $5,000,000 corporation. Mr. Brashears and Miss Estelle Green of 
Utica, Mississippi, were married in April, 1898. Their children are Willie Green 
and Robert Clayton Brashears. 



470 




^^dL^^^, 





rv 0-7^ 



®. C. Salmon 




iHOMAS EMORY SALMON, Memphis, Tennessee, one of 
the leading cotton planters in the upper Mississippi Delta, as 
well as largely interested in cotton lands in Arkansas, was 
born in Senatobia, Mississippi, August 28, 1872, the son of 
Joseph M. and Annie Wells (Williams) Salmon. His parents 
came from South Carolina to Mississippi at an early date 
and were among the early settlers of Tate County, where his father spent the 
remainder of his life except during the time that he served the Confederacy, in 
whose army he was a gallant soldier until he received a wound which sent him 
home. He was a farmer who had the respect of the entire community in which 
he lived. Mr. Salmon was educated in the public schools of Senatobia until he 
was sixteen years of age and then went to work on one of the plantations of 
J. T. Gabbert & Company, beginning at the bottom. He saw in the level fertile 
lands of the Delta to the west of him more opportunities for his mental and 
physical energies than in the hill country, and hence secured a position on the 
plantation of C. L. Robinson at Robinsonville as assistant to W. K. Herrin in 
the management of the plantation and store. He remained there for four years 
and then went with Tate Brothers, where he was in charge of their plantation 
and mercantile business. From there he went to Green Grove, Mississippi, where 
he was with Mrs. John P. Richardson for thirty days, when he resigned and in 
1904 went into the planting and mercantile business on his own account. It 
was in that year that he rented from the late John L. Cooke his twelve hundred- 
acre plantation on Beaver Dam, between Maud and Dubbs, Mississippi. He has 
managed the affairs of that plantation with such signal success for Mr. Cooke, 
the estate and himself that he still has charge of it and has been able at the 
same time to lay the foundation on which he has built up a nice estate for him- 
self. In all he has some four thousand acres in cultivation in cotton, corn and 
hay, including the Cooke property. He bought ten hundred and forty-five acres 
for himself a few miles east of Coahoma, Mississippi, and in conjunction with 
B. B. Brooks he owns some seventeen hundred acres of fine land in Lee County, 
Arkansas, near Brickey's. Those who are familiar with the three plantations 
agree that Mr. Salmon is one of the best farmers in the lowlands of this sec- 
tion. He has found time from his private affairs to serve Tunica County as 
treasurer from 1902 to 1912, and as a member of the board of supervisors from 
1916 to 1920, where his sterling integrity and sound judgment were of great 
value to the county. He also was a member of the board which built the Agri- 
cultural High School in Tunica. Mr. Salmon and Miss Estella May Scott were 
married May 1, 1898. They had four children, of whom two, Miss Evelyne and 
Raymond Farley Salmon, are living. 



475 



€. C. glexanber 




DWARD EVERETTE ALEXANDER, lawyer, Blytheville, 
Arkansas, was born in Fruitland, Missouri, September 17, 
1882, the son of Oliver and Lillie Lucretia Alexander. He 
attended the common schools of Fruitland and Leemon, and 
the State Normal School at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and 
then went to the Tennesseee State University at Knoxville, 
where he received the degree of bachelor of laws in 1907. He was admitted to 
the practice of law in Tennessee in the spring of that year, but within a few 
months he moved to Arkansas and was admitted at Benton to the bar of that 
State. In September of that year he went to Blytheville, where he began the 
practice of his profession. There is no superior land to that which surrounds 
Blytheville and it remained only for the type of men that he is to make of it the 
thriving city which it is. From the start he was one of the active factors in 
every movement for the upbuilding of the community in which he settled. He 
had been so active that in 1914 he was elected by Mississippi County as its rep- 
resentative in the Legislature of the State. There his constructive ability showed 
to its best advantage. He was chosen as chairman of the ways and means com- 
mittee of the house, the most important post in that body so far as the general 
welfare of the State is concerned. But the greatest work that he did for the 
entire State and especially for his own and his neighboring counties in the 
St. Francis Basin was in the matter of road legislation. There was not a road 
in the entire basin which was passable or could be made passable except during 
the latter periods of the dry seasons. Few, if any, counties, have adequate roads 
without the issuance of bonds with which to do the primary work, and in 
Arkansas, neither the State, the county nor the city can issue bonds for any 
purpose, but Mr. Alexander framed his law so that the county could be divided 
into districts, and in the event that either the land owners or the citizens wanted 
certain roads, they could bond the district and construct them. It is under the 
provisions of this act that practically all of the magnificent highways now 
under construction in Arkansas are being built. So valuable had been the serv- 
ices of Mr. Alexander in the lower house during the session of 1915, that at its 
expiration he was prevailed upon to go to the State Senate representing the 
Twenty-ninth district, comprising Mississippi, Poinsett and Jackson counties. 
He was equally efficient in the regular and extra sessions of 1917-19. In both 
bodies he was an ardent supporter of suffrage, prohibition and the Wilson 
administration. He is an A. T. O. of Tennessee University, past exalted ruler 
for two terms and district deputy grand exalted ruler of the Elks. He and 
Miss Quincy C. Tipton of Cottonwood Point, Missouri, were married June 30, 
1908. They have one child, Quincy Oliver Alexander. 



476 





-) 



1. C. gumes; 




JAURENCE CABELL HUMES, banker, Memphis, Tennessee, 
was born in Abingdon, Virginia, August 4, 1880, the son of 
Lowry and Edmonia (Barton) Humes and the grandson of 
General \V. Y. C. Humes, who served on the staff of General 
Wheeler during the Civil War. The family moved to Mem- 
phis when Laurence was a child and he received his education 
in the public schools of the city. Shortly after leaving the Lake Avenue High 
School he decided to learn the banking business and went to work for the First 
National Bank as an exchange clerk. He was then nineteen years old but the 
same sterling qualities that made his grandfather one of the most trusted and 
also one of the ablest generals of the Confederate army began to assert them- 
selves and his fellow workers soon began to realize that while many young men 
work only for the immediate results, Laurence Humes was looking for the 
future. Hard work coupled with natural ability along financial lines brought 
promotion from one position to another. From exchange clerk he was pro- 
moted to general bookkeeper, then auditor and finally assistant cashier. He 
occupied this position in 1918 when some of the leading financiers of this terri- 
tory decided to found a large banking institution, to be known as the Guaranty 
Bank & Trust Company. One of their problems was to find a cashier who not 
only knew the banking business thoroughly but had the ability to make and 
keep friends. "Larry" Humes, as he is known to his friends, seemed to have 
these qualities to a remarkable degree and he was asked to become vice-presi- 
dent and cashier of the new institution, launched with a capital of $500,000. The 
new bank was successful from the start and within two years' time the deposits 
went to six million dollars, a record for a new institution in Memphis. Although 
competing with banks of many years of service in the community the Guaranty 
Bank & Trust Company at the end of the second year of its existence found 
itself in fifth place among all the banks of the city. As the bank forged ahead 
the eyes of the banking world naturally turned to the men at the helm of the 
new institution with the result that Mr. Humes soon had the reputation of being 
one of the city's most successful bankers. He made friends rapidly and his 
popularity naturally resulted in honors coming to the young banker. He was 
made president of the Memphis Clearing House Association, which with the 
possible exception of New Orleans, is the largest in the South. Mr. Humes 
also was named first vice-president of the American Institute of Banking, being 
one of three bankers in Memphis who ever have had this honor. Mr. Humes 
is a member of the Memphis Country Club, the Colonial Country Club, Tennes- 
see Club, Chamber of Commerce and Bankers Club of Memphis. He is a thirty- 
second degree Mason and a member of the executive council of the Tennessee 
Bankers Association. 



481 



C. C. Sanson 




HARLES CLINTON HANSON, for nearly twenty years 
most active in all movements for the improvement of Mem- 
phis, especially along educational and altruistic lines, and in 
the matter of injecting thorough system into all public affairs, 
is a native of Alabama. He was born March 29, 1867, at Opel- 
ika, and had no education in early life except what he was 
able to acquire from the public schools of his home county, when not busy on 
the farm where he was reared. His first commercial experience was as tele- 
graph operator, and in 1890 he became agent for the railroads entering Eufaula, 
Alabama. Later the same year he became chief clerk to the traffic manager of 
the Ocean Steamship Company and Central of Georgia Railroad at Savannah. 
Later he was joint terminal agent for the Central, the C. & W. C. and the 
P. R. & A. at Augusta, and still later special agent for the executive officers of 
the Central of Georgia and Ocean Steamship Company at Savannah. In 1898 
he leased the compresses of those companies. Three years later he was the 
president of the Atlantic Compress Company with headquarters in Atlanta. In 
1902 he became president of the Gulf Compress Company with headquarters 
in Memphis, where he has lived since June, 1908. Now he owns and controls 
the long chain of compresses throughout Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and 
Alabama, operated under the name of "The Churchill Compresses." He was 
elected president of the City Club in 1912-1913, and again in 1919; is president 
of the Bureau of Municipal Research; secretary-treasurer of the Mississippi 
Valley Compress Association ; trustee of the Shelby County Industrial & Train- 
ing School. He and Judge J. P. Young rejuvenated the Bolton College farm, 
and Mr. Hanson is chairman of the board of trustees for that institution. He 
was for seven years a member of the State Board of Education, and has a won- 
derful library of books on education, and has ever been deeply interested along 
those lines. Mr. Hanson is both a York and a Scottish Rite Mason, having 
attained to the thirty-second degree ; a member of the Shrine ; of the Knights of 
Pythias; of the Knights of Khorassan ; of the Kiwanis Club; of the Memphis 
Country Club, and of the Chamber of Commerce, and president of the Memphis 
Chapter of the International Business Science Society. Mr. Hanson succeeded 
the late Dr. R. B. Maury as head of the Audubon Society for Shelby County, 
and is doing a noble work, not only through propaganda but also in actual prac- 
tice for the preservation of birds. His farm in the Bolton College neighborhood 
is a bird sanctuary. While Mr. Hanson is a Democrat, he has never sought nor 
held any public office, but has given freely of his time and his money for all 
public movements. Mr. Hanson was married in June, 1889, to Miss Marie Adele 
Shorter, daughter of Col. Henry R. Shorter, of the distinguished Alabama family 
of that name. 



482 



J. I. Kalep 




I ESSE LEE HALEY, one of the largest planters of cotton in 
the world, Itta Bena, Mississippi, is a native of Tennessee, 
where he was born in Maury County, December 22, 1857, the 
son of Charles Washington and Rebecca (Cook) Haley. He 
managed to get four months' education in the free schools and 
at the age of seven years went to work, first as a cotton picker 
and later at any odd job that he could find. He continued this manner of life 
until he was eighteen years of age and then borrowed enough money with which 
to go to Greenwood, Mississippi, where he picked cotton, repaying out of his 
wages what he had borrowed. Then he rented a place of fifteen acres across the 
river from Greenwood for a year and added to this, doing the work himself. Of 
powerful physique, fine sense and high ambition he worked as few men could 
have done and this combination applied to the fertile land of the Yazoo River 
created wealth. At the end of twelve years of renting it was possible for him 
to buy the Grand View Plantation of five hundred and fifty acres. He man- 
aged this with signal success until the '90s, when he sold it and bought the Itta 
Bena Plantation, formerly owned by Governor Humphreys. This contained 
twenty-two hundred acres and he ran his holdings up to no less than twelve thou- 
sand acres by 1917. Then he began selling some of his LeFlore County lands and 
investing in Issaquena County, where he now owns some twenty thousand acres, in 
addition to large holdings he retained in LeFlore County and in Itta Bena, where 
he still makes his home. He has more than seven thousand acres in cultivation, 
operating half a dozen gins and two saw mills. Mr. Haley was elected tax 
assessor of LeFlore County before he was of age and had to wait until he was 
twenty-one before being able to qualify for the office. He served four years as 
sheriff and tax collector and has been a supervisor for fifteen years and for the 
past nine years has been president and vice-president of the board. He was a 
member of the Upper Yazoo Levee Board for seven years. He has been an 
alderman of Itta Bena during its twenty-four years of existence. In fact, with 
no education, with no backing, veritably a stranger in a strange land without 
money, Mr. Haley by sheer merit, ability, energy and the use both of his brawn 
and his brains, worked himself up to where for more than a generation he has 
been one of the most conspicuous, useful and dominating figures in a county 
unsurpassed in the United States in the personnel of its citizenship. He is a 
member of the Methodist Church and Greenwood Lodge of Elks ; a Knight of 
Pythias ; an Odd Fellow ; a Knight of Honor, and a member of the Masonic 
lodge of Itta Bena. Mr. Haley was married February 25, 1897, to Mrs. Mattie 
Elizabeth Parker, nee Blount. Their children are Mina Lou, Rebecca Ann, and 
Jesse Lee Haley, Junior, beside Roxy, Mrs. Haley's child by her former marriage. 



487 



James; Jlenrp Jofmston 




(vgjAMES HENRY JOHNSON of Clarksdale, Mississippi, is 
one of the few successful business men in that Delta section 
whose wealth is not built upon a foundation of cotton culture, 
but still his success has been as great as has that of those who 
went into planting. His general insurance agency is said to 
be the largest in Mississippi and unquestionably is one of the 
largest and most highly respected in the entire South. He is a native Missis- 
sippian, being the son of Wiley J. and Orentine Sherer Johnson, of DeSoto 
County, where he was born on June 4, 1867. The father died when he was only 
eleven years of age and he was compelled to go to work in Hernando, where 
the family had moved. The lad was compelled to go to work and got only 
such education as was possible in the public schools during the springs and 
summers until he was sixteen years of age, and when business was light in the 
store for which he went to work at $6.00 per month. By the end of 1890, he 
had been raised to $50.00 per month ; which was about all that he could hope 
for as a clerk there at that time. His brother having been elected sheriff of 
Tunica County, he then went there as chief deputy. After one year the sheriff 
died and Mr. Johnson remained as chief deputy for his successor, but resigned 
January 10, 1895, and moved to Clarksdale, where he opened a general insurance 
agency. His painstaking attention to every detail of the business, absolute hon- 
esty and attractive manner caused the business to grow from the start and each 
year finds a greater volume of business coming into his office. His ability as 
an expert in his line was recognized by his fellow agents in the State and he 
served three years as president of the Mississippi Local Underwriters Associa- 
tion. He is president of the Johnson-Harlow Lumber Company, vice-president 
of the Clarksdale Machinery Company, chairman of the finance committee of 
the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company, and secretary and treasurer of a number 
of smaller concerns. For the past twenty years he has been secretary and treas- 
urer of the board of stewards of the Methodist Church. He has held many of 
the highest offices, both local and state, in the Knights of Pythias, various 
branches of Free Masonry and the Elks. He is a director in the Chamber of 
Commerce, trustee and secretary of the high school board, and trustee and chair- 
man of the Carnegie Library. He was very active in Red Cross, loan and sav- 
ings stamp campaigns during the war, and as county sales manager for the Vic- 
tory loan, put the county's allotment of $1,500,000 over two days before the 
opening of the drive with the aid of five executive committeemen. He has 
served as alderman, acting mayor and postmaster. He married Miss Oney Shaw, 
January 22, 1896. Their children are Katherine, James H., Junior, Elizabeth, 
Oney Shaw and Mary Louise. 



488 



3f. Prigftt dloobimr 




, ONE of the younger business men of Memphis is better known, 
better liked or more progressive than James Bright Goodbar, 
son of James Monroe and Mary E. (Morgan) Goodbar, con- 
nected with the wholesale shoe firm of Goodbar & Company 
since 1901 and active vice-president of that house since 1908. 
Soon after the long, honorable and successful career of Mr. 
James M. Goodbar was closed by his death on June 13, 1920, Mr. J. Bright 
Goodbar was chosen to succeed him as the head of the firm which his father 
had established here sixty years prior to that time, when he moved from Nash- 
ville to Memphis and with Colonel Thomas L. Bransford and his son, John S. 
Bransford, went into the wholesale shoe business under the name of Bransford, 
Goodbar & Company. The firm had a record for integrity surpassed by none, 
and broken only for the four years that Mr. J. M. Goodbar served the Confed- 
eracy. Born in Memphis August 12, 1881, he was educated in the Memphis 
University School and finished his course at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, 
New Hampshire. Upon his return from the academy, he entered immediately 
into his father's business, where he has risen rapidly. Now he is a director in 
the Bank of Commerce & Trust Company, and in the Peoples Bank & Trust 
Company. He is a member of the Tennessee Club, the Memphis Country Club 
and Wapanocca Outing Club. He early caught the contagion of the campaign 
for the South to raise its own rations, and realized that the only way in which 
this could be accomplished was to fill the land as quickly as possible with pure- 
bred hogs of the finest strains. He bought Jack's Top King, one of the classi- 
est Duroc-Jersey sires of today, in the auction ring for $10,500 from Ira Jack- 
son, then leader in the breeding of sires of that strain. Jack's Top King was 
installed as the head of the herd of pure-breds that Mr. Goodbar had accumu- 
lated on his stock farm just east of Memphis, and at the Southern Circuit Duroc 
sales, where world's records for prices have been made only to be broken, his 
blood lines have commanded wonderful prices. Mr. Goodbar was an ardent 
supporter of Edward H. Crump from his earliest campaigns, and although Mr. 
Goodbar wanted no office, Mr. Crump induced him to become a member of the 
first civil service commission in Memphis, the only public office which he has 
ever held. On November 16, 1904, Mr. Goodbar and Miss Virginia Lee Wil- 
liams, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin R. Williams, members of an old and 
aristocratic family of Fayette County, Tennessee, were married, the climax of a 
love that each had had for the other since they were mere children. They have 
a daughter and a son, Laura E. Goodbar and James Monroe Goodbar II, named 
for his grandfather. Their home on Central Avenue, and, during the seasons of 
open weather, their country place, are the scenes of many delightful social 
affairs. 



493 



W&. A. »mgftelb 




; ALTER SLOANE WINGFIELD, junior member but active 
head of the cotton planting firm of W. S. Barry & Company, 
Shellmound, Mississippi, is a native of Mobile, Alabama, 
where he was born August 11, 1859, the son of Walter Sloane 
and Elmyra Wingfield. The elder Mr. Wingfield was one of 
the leading educators of the Gulf Coast and it was from him 
that the son got the rudiments of his early education. However, the father 
died when the son was but fourteen years of age and the lad was left almost 
entirely upon his own resources. In the meantime, however, he had attended 
Madison College, at Sharon, Mississippi, for a time. At the age of sixteen 
years Mr. Wingfield went to the Mississippi Delta, locating first near McNult 
and then spending a while near Schlater. While still very young he went to 
work for Mr. William S. Barry, who owned some land in the upper portion 
of Leflore County. He put such a degree of energy, integrity and ability into 
the business that it was but a short time until Mr. Barry and he made an 
arrangement by which Mr. Wingfield was to have an interest in the business 
and in a short time after that they became partners in the firm of W. S. 
Barry & Company. The partnership started with Mr. Wingfield in charge 
of some fifteen hundred acres of land that Mr. Barry owned at Shellmound. 
Mr. Wingfield soon made that one of the show places of the Mississippi Delta. 
It was a magnificent piece of property when he took charge of it so far as 
the character of the land went, and he was one of the pioneers on the Talla- 
hatchie River in the matter of tile draining as well as one of the first to erect 
comfortable, convenient and attractive painted cottages in place of the old shan- 
ties for the negroes on the plantation. These progressive measures showed 
from the beginning in the class of labor that he was able to get and retain 
the plantation and in the crops that they were able to bring from the land 
with the tiles taking off the surplus moisture and letting the air into the soil. 
From the day that Mr. Wingfield took charge of the plantation he showed 
himself to be one of the best planters in that land of splendid managers, and 
the business soon adjusted itself to where he was left practically alone in 
charge of the large and growing affairs. Under his direction the business 
has expanded to where the firm of W. S. Barry & Company has ten thousand 
acres instead of the original fifteen hundred and where it is recognized as 
one of the leading producers of cotton in the Delta, as well as one of the most 
progressive firms. Mr. Wingfield is a member of Sunflower Masonic Lodge 
No. 223, a Knight Templar, a Knight of Pythias, and a member of the Green- 
wood Lodge of Elks. He is also a charter member of the Presbyterian Church 
at Greenwood. For a number of years he was a most valuable member of the 
County Board of Supervisors. Mr. Wingfield has never married 



494 




^fJ,^fX^f </^at^ 






^2r-z^? 



C &. Babts! 




jHARLES ROBERT DAVIS, merchant and planter, Bailey, 
Tennessee, was born on the plantation near which he now 
lives October 15, 1866. He was the son of Charles Robert 
and Laura (Taylor) Davis. His father came from South 
Carolina to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1845, and for many 
years was one of the leading merchants and citizens of that 
city, being a member of the large grocery firm of Parker, Elder & Davis, in 
which he remained until 1858, when he retired to his plantation, a few miles 
east of the city. Mr. Davis, after attending the public schools of Shelby 
County, attended the University of Virginia, from which he graduated in 1887 
with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He returned to Memphis, where he 
practiced law for two years, when, on account of his father's ill health, he 
abandoned his profession to take charge of his large farming interests. He 
was married to Miss Eddie L. King, Mt. Pleasant, Mississippi, April 17, 1889. 
Seven children have been born to them — Laura (now Mrs. C. W. G. Elliott), 
Rosa (now Mrs. E. H. Koch), Edward King (manager of Davis Brothers' 
Store), Charles R. Jr., John Archer II, William H. (died November 1, 1917), 
and Thomas Gaston Davis. In connection with his farming interests, in 1894 
he entered into a partnership with his brother, J. A. Davis, in the general 
mercantile and ginning business at Bailey. He is still actively and success- 
fully engaged in these enterprises. He owns about seventeen hundrd acres 
of land near Bailey, and it is one of the most valuable tracts in Shelby County. 
Twenty-five years ago he felt that the lands of his section should raise a more 
valuable species of cotton than that which was current and he became a pioneer 
in the long staple product. He has bred his cotton up until he now has per- 
fected a staple far above the ordinary upland cotton in value. He is also a 
believer in the principle that the farm should be self-supporting, and raises 
a large acreage of corn and forage crops each year. He has always strongly 
encouraged the breeding of fine cattle, hogs and sheep for the South. In 
politics Mr. Davis has always manifested a keen interest, not in seeking a 
lucrative office, but solely in the hope of making general conditions better for 
all. He served as a valuable member of the County Court from 1902 to 1906 
and was elected to the State Legislature in 1904 and again in 1916. During 
the session of 1905 the Shelby delegation introduced and secured the passage 
of the anti-racing law, and the Jim Crow law applying to street cars. During 
the session of 1917 they passed the anti-fee bill which was so popular with 
the people and so unpopular with the office holder. The bone dry law was 
also passed during this session. Mr. Davis is a member of the Woodmen 
of the World, the Masonic Fraternity and the Christian Church. 



499 



J, ft, ?RHat*on 




[AMES SAMUEL WATSON, Drew, Mississippi, who went 
first with his father to the Garden of Eden or the Promised 
Land, as was known, in those days, the locality where now 
stands the beautiful little city of Drew, was born in Holmes 
County, Mississipi, February 11, 1874, the son of Richard H. 
and Martha Watson. In the early days of the United States 
his family had been one of the wealthiest in the Southern States. They came 
from England and Scotland to North Carolina before the Revolution and 
were the owners of forty thousand acres of land in that State under a grant 
from the English crown. But recently there stood near Trenton, North Caro- 
lina, the ancestral home of the Watson family, one of the most magnificent 
in that section, its stairways of solid walnut and everything else in keeping with 
that degree of grandeur. However, times had changed when James S. Watson 
was a youth, but he showed a capacity to change in them and this has been 
proven by the fact that, left an orphan and practically without means at the 
tender age of seven years, he has amassed a fortune for himself and at the 
same time found leisure to be of material service to others and to his com- 
munity. While but a child he went to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and there man- 
aged to supplement, in a high school, the education which he had gotten from 
his mother. In fact, he worked for $15.00 a month with which to get money 
to go to school. He returned to Mississippi and at the age of sixteen years 
went to woork for a big lumber company in Bolivar County. He remained 
actively and with great success in the timber business for seventeen years, 
returning to Drew and being a partner with Fred Grittman in the stave business 
there in 1906. After his return to Drew, he became interested in planting and 
now he is one of the leading producers of cotton in Sunflower County. He 
has also made large investments in oil properties and owns leases on some 
twenty thousand acres in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. In 1916 he became 
sheriff and tax collector for Sunflower County and held that position until 
December 31, 1919, making one of the best executives that the county has 
ever had. During the World War he was chairman of the exemption board 
for Sunflower County, and he was conspicuous in every campaign for Liberty 
Loans, Victory Loans, and Red Cross funds, both with his time and with his 
money. He is a stockholder in the Merchants & Planters Bank of Drew, and 
also in the Manning Gin Company, which recently bought out the Buckeye 
Cotton Oil Company's plant there. He is also a stockholder in the Coahoma 
County Cotton Company of Clarksdale, Mississippi. He is a member of the 
Baptist Church, a Thirty-second degree Mason and a member of Hamassa 
Temple. Mr. Watson and Miss Alice Pearson were married January 7, 1894. 
Their children are: J. C. Watson, Miss Lottie (now Mrs. Wilsford), Miss 
Mildred and Miss Eva Watson. 



500 





vxvzSSj^r— 



3. 51 . »alton 




|^5j)OHN HARTWELL WALTON, Drew, Mississippi, planter, 
K#2 banker, and one of the leading business men of Sunflower 

JVWO County, is a fair specimen of what a man of industry, energy, 
Wi ambition and vision is able to accomplish in the fertile lands 
JI!2x of the Mississippi Delta. He was born in Attala County, 
Skx/ Mississippi, December 26, 1872, the son of John Jackson and 
Sarah Jane Walton. Both the family and the section in which he was reared 
were far from being prosperous at that time and he was able to get in the 
way of education only a portion of one term in a country school. At a very 
young age he went to work at anything that he could find to do. Upon 
becoming of age, he began farming for himself on fifteen acres of land in 
Attala County and remained at that for two years. At the end of that time 
he reached the conclusion that there were opportunities far greater for him 
in the Delta than in the hills of Mississippi and hence he went in 1890 to where 
Drew now is. He landed in "Promised Land," a small clearing, now the pros- 
perous little city. That was before the Yazoo Delta line of the Yazoo & 
Mississippi Valley Railroad was completed and in that whole section of the 
country there were but two hundred acres of land in cultivation, the remainder 
of the country being the densest canebrakes and virgin forests of the most mag- 
nificent hardwood imaginable. In fact, immediately after the completion of the 
railroad through there a few years later, twenty-three saw mills sprang up 
within twenty-one miles of railroad, their output being almost entirely oak. 
Mr. Walton bought forty acres of land to start with west of the main portion 
of the town. He cleared this himself and at once began planting cotton. He 
made up with energy, integrity and sound judgment what he lacked in finances 
to start with and now he has the pleasure of living in a magnificent home on 
the original forty-acre tract, while he cultivates two thousand acres of the 
best alluvial land. He has been active in the financial as well as in the agri- 
cultural development of the Delta. In 1906 he co-operated in the reorganiza- 
tion of the Merchants & Planters Bank of Drew, then with a capital stock of 
$25,000. He has been a director in it for seven years and for the past two 
years its president. Now it has a capital of $100,000 and one of the finest 
bank buildings in Missisisppi. He is a director in the Crull-Whittington Dry 
Goods Company of Greenwood, and a stockholder in the Planters Oil Com- 
pany of Clarksdale, Coahoma County Cotton Company of Clarksdale ; Bank 
of Clarksdale, and the Webb-Summer Oil Mill Company of Webb. Mr. Wal- 
ton and two associates are the owners of the Farmers Gin at Drew. He also 
holds valuable oil lands in Texas near the Burkburnett field. Mr. Walton 
and Miss Gertrude Pearson were married December 27, 1894. They have 
three children: Jesse, Eunice and John H. Jr. 



505 



©t\ I. C. jfeemster 




;UCIAN CARL FEEMSTER, Tupelo, Mississippi, a leading 
surgeon and physician of North-East Mississippi, is one of 
the best educated men in his state in the line of his profes- 
sion, and to his credit it may be added that the major por- 
tion of his education is due to his own exertions. Dr. 
Feemster was born in Nettleton, Lee County, Mississippi, 
Septetmber 28, 1873, the oldest of eleven children of William Orpheus and 
Margaret Ann (Foster) Feemster. At the age of sixteen years he had com- 
pleted the course in Providence College at Nettleton, but he was not satisfied 
with having gone through the curriculum there and spent the next three years 
at the National Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio, where he received the 
degree of bachelor of science in 1891. Thence he went to the College of 
Pharmacy in Baltimore, Maryland, and was graduated from that institution 
in 1895 with the degree of graduate in pharmacy. Deciding that he would 
take the practice of medicine and surgery for his future career, he turned his 
face South and came to the old Memphis Hospital Medical College, which 
then had a faculty probably the equal of any in the United States and which 
was the alma mater for so many of the really great physicians and surgeons 
of the South. He received his degree of doctor of medicine from that insti- 
tution in 1897 and after having served during 1897 and 1898 as house surgeon 
in St. Joseph's Hospital in Memphis, he returned to Nettleton and began the 
practice of his profession of medicine and surgery. After several years of suc- 
cess at his old home he moved to Tupelo in 1913, and from the time that he 
went to that larger field he has stood at the head of his profession. His fellows 
in his own State have honored him by making him president of the East 
Mississippi-Ten Counties Medical Society, and the Mississippi State Medical 
Society, of both of which he still is a member, as he is also of the Southern 
Medical Association and the American Medical Association. He is also a ruling 
elder in the Presbyterian Church in the United States, a Mason, a Knight of 
Pythias, a Woodman of the World and an Odd Fellow. During his vacations 
Dr. Feemster worked to make money for the next session's expenses, and in 
doing so visited every State east of the Mississippi River excepting Wisconsin 
and Michigan. Dr. Feemster has succeeded not only in the practice of his pro- 
fession, but also in the business world. He is a director in the Peoples Bank 
& Trust Company of Tupelo, owns a plantation of eleven hundred acres some 
ten miles southeast of the city and is the sole owner of the Feemster Building, 
a handsome combination of stores below and offices above. He and Miss John 
McGaughey were married November 30, 1900. They have two sons, L. C. Jr., 
and John McGaughey, and one daughter, Louise Feemster. 



506 







&ZZJ 




Jk^s^^Uy^ee 



J. C U^ell 




|OHN EVANS UZZELL, planter and merchant at Pecan Point, 
Arkansas, with plantations near Bassett, Arkansas, and a 
residence in Memphis, Tennessee, is a native of Mississippi 
County, Arkansas, where his ancestors were among the earliest 
settlers in the St. Francis Basin, and among the most vigorous 
of those sturdy men whose constant fighting has developed 
that fertile country in only a short time from a wilderness into one of the 
most prosperous sections of the United States. The Uzzells of the United 
States date their ancestry from Thomas Uzzell, one of those high spirited young 
Frenchmen who volunteered with the Marquis de la Fayette to aid the American 
colonies to wrest their independence from the British crown, and who com- 
manded a ship in the fleet which came over and turned the tide of the War 
of the Revolution. The Frenchman liked this side of the water and after the 
collapse of English authority, he settled in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, 
where he became a man of large landholdings and also the owner of many 
slaves. However, he emancipated all of his slaves and after his death, his only 
surviving son, Elisha, sold the Virginia estate and moved to Maury County, 
Tennessee, where he lived at Columbia until 1859, when he moved to French- 
man's Bayou, Arkansas, and lived the remainder of his life there with his 
son, John Wesley Uzzell, who was the father of Mr. John E. Uzzell. John 
Wesley Uzzell married Lavinia Tipton Evans from Tipton County, Tennessee, 
descended from the Tipton family which was such an important factor in 
Tennessee from the Wautauga settlement in the mountains to the banks of the 
Mississippi River and for whom the County of Tipton was named. Mr. John E. 
Uzzell was going to school in Covington, Tennessee, to Judge James Byars in 
1884, when his father died and he returned to Frenchman's Bayou and took 
charge of the family estate. He developed it rapidly and sent his younger 
brother and sisters to school. In 1892, he married Miss Nettie Lee, daughter 
of Robert W. Friend, for many years one of the most conspicuous men in 
Mississippi County. They lived for many years at Pecan Point where Mrs. Uzzell 
owned a magnificent plantation, but in the meanwhile Mr. Uzzell had bought 
out the interests of the other heirs to the plantations which his grandfather 
had entered from the United States Government on Frenchman's Bayou, near 
Bassett, and they sold the Pecan Point place. Now Mr. Uzzell devotes his 
time to the cultivation and development of that property. At Pecan Point he 
was in charge of all of the campaigns for war activities and the community 
went far over its assessment in every drive. In addition to his planting 
interests, Mr. Uzzell is a stockholder in the Bank of Wilson, the Citizens 
Bank of Osceola and the Tom James Oil Company, as well as many smaller 
enterprises. He and Mrs. Uzzell have two children, Jack and Charline Uzzell. 



511 



<£. V. ftaplor 




[EORGE THOMAS TAYLOR, planter and capitalist, Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, was born in Linden, Perry County, Tennes- 
G(£\\ see, March 11, 1862, the son of Alfred Merideth and Sarah 
\¥j (Dodson) Taylor. He received only a common school edu- 
cation. In 1890, he moved to Union City, Tennessee, where 
he engaged with wonderful success in the grain, elevator 
and farming business. Later he bought a magnificent piece of property in 
Pemiscott County, Missouri, that and his Obion County, Tennessee, land being 
unsurpassed by any in the country in its capacity to produce corn. It was 
during the time that Mr. Taylor was living in Union City that Tennessee 
was in the final throes of the long fight for and against the legal sale of 
liquor. Mr. Taylor was a life-long Republican by inheritance. His father 
and his grandfather were old line Whigs, even to the degree that they stood 
up to their convictions in the days of secession. It was that party which 
carried the State overwhelmingly for remaining in the Union on the first 
secession election. After Sumter the bulk of the Whigs went for secession, 
but the Taylor family remained steadfast, and Mr. Taylor had eight uncles 
in the Union army, and not one in the Confederate army. The natural place 
for the Whigs after the close of the war was in the Republican party and it 
was into that organization that Mr. Taylor's family went. When the Prohi- 
bition-Democrats and Republicans had coalesced in the organization of the 
Tennessee General Assembly in 1911, Mr. Taylor as a clear-headed successful 
business man of the highest integrity was chosen as treasurer of the State 
and ex-officio insurance commissioner by a union of Regular Democrats and 
Brownlow Republicans. His administration of the financial affairs of the 
State was just as successful as has been his conduct of his private affairs 
and he made one of the best treasurers and insurance commissioners that the 
State has ever had. During the time that he was in office, he removed from 
Union City to Memphis, remaining in the grain and elevator business with 
the same degree of success which attended his business in that line in Union 
City. Except during the two years that he was in office at Nashville, Mr. Taylor 
has not really sought public office, but he has always taken a lively interest 
in the affairs of his party, which has twice sent him to represent it in national 
conventions. He is a most astute politician and from time to time takes a 
hand, for amusement largely, in the selection of delegates and committees by 
the various conventions and it is seldom that the cause which he espouses 
is not victorious in the end. In 1915 he bought two plantations aggregating 
thirty-five hundred acres in the Mississippi Delta, and since that time he has 
devoted most of his time to them. He and Miss Mattie Lee Irvine were 
married May 15, 1890. Their sons are: Wood, Hal and Bob Irvine. 



512 





^btj&n^ 



Jf . $. ^mtti) 




JAISON HEATHMAN SMITH, lawyer, head of the cotton 
shipping firm of G. K. Smith's Sons, former mayor of 
Indianola, Mississippi, one of the most active factors in the 
creation of that prosperous little city, and although only reach- 
ing the prime of life still one of the oldest native-born citizens 
of that community, was born November 30, 1879, the son of 
George Kinnebrew and Augusta A. (Heathman) Smith. His grandfather 
had moved to Sunflower from Yazoo County, Mississippi, in the early fifties, 
bringing slaves with whom he floated logs down the Sunflower and Yazoo 
rivers, and also with whom he began clearing up land for cultivation in cotton. 
That was in the days when the Sunflower River country was a real wilder- 
ness, when there was law in the statute books of the State applying theoreti- 
cally to that section of the country but when there was practically no one to 
administer it in the name of the State — when every man was his own law if 
he was able to enforce it, and if he was not able to do so, he either yielded 
to some stronger force in the community or left the country. The Smith 
family was of the dominating class, but the domination was ever with an 
eye to the final establishment of order through the laws of the land and the 
duly chosen officers under those laws. The grandfather died about the time 
of the Civil War leaving a large estate in lands. Mr. Smith's father was 
prevented from following his brothers into the Confederate Army by the loss 
of a hand while out hunting, and he saved the estate which was badly involved, 
and became one of the leading if not the leading factor in the development 
of Sunflower County. Indianola probably owes its existence on the map to 
him and to his son, Mr. Faison Smith. Mr. Smith's mother, Miss Augusta 
Heathman, also belongs to one of the oldest and most substantial and most 
useful families in the county. Mr. Faison Smith was educated in the common 
and high schools of his native county and then went to the University of Missis- 
sippi, where he took both the literary and law courses, receiving the bachelor- 
ships both of laws and sciences. His father in the meanwhile had been the main 
factor in moving the county seat from Johnsonville to Indianola. He engaged 
in selling his plantation there to those who wanted homes or business houses, 
giving them long time in which to pay and financing them in building. Mr. Faison 
Smith joined him in this, abandoning the law at the end of a year. He later 
organized the cotton buying and shipping firm of G. K. Smith's Sons of which 
he is the head and he is also president of the Indianola Cotton Exchange. 
He is a member of the Baptist Church, a Mason and belonged to the Phi Delta 
Theta fraternity to the university. He and Miss Jessie L. Gooch of Durant, 
Mississippi, were married April 13, 1900. Their children are: George K. Ill, 
Faison H., Jr., and Miss Jessie G. 



517 



Clpbe Eobinaon 




[LYDE ROBINSON, banker, planter and business man, Blythe- 
ville, Arkansas, although still young in years, is one of the 
oldest citizens of that prosperous little city, for he was born 
in East Blytheville, September 4, 1876, the son of Thomas H. 
and Mary (Allen) Robinson. He received his early educa- 
tion in the public schools at Blytheville, and in 1893 went to 
Huntingdon, Tennessee, and in 1896 finished his education there in the South- 
ern Normal University. He returned at once to Mississippi County and began 
his business career as a clerk in the general merchandise store of R. Semmes & 
Company at Pecan Point. The following year the great flood came down the 
river and found the St. Francis Levee system too young and weak to with- 
stand it. Many crevasses occurred and such a large proportion of the lands 
were inundated that the people were anxious to convert their cattle into 
money. Mr. Robinson went out as a cattle buyer and did a big business in 
that line. By the following year he had become strong enough financially 
to go into business on his own hook and opened a store under the name of 
Clyde Robinson & Company at West Pecan Point. In 1899, he and his brother, 
Edwin W. Robinson, opened a store at the neighboring landing of Barfield. 
The business prospered at both of these places until 1906, when Mr. Robin- 
son was elected recorder and clerk of the Circuit and Chancery courts. Upon 
assuming his office he moved his residence to Osceola, the old county seat of 
Mississippi County. In 1908, he had sharp opposition for re-election to the 
office, but his administration had been so good and his popularity had grown 
to such an extent that he led the ticket. Blytheville having been made also a 
county seat for Mississippi County, he moved his home there in 1909, and 
in the latter part of that year, just prior to the expiration of his term of office, 
he organized the Peoples Bank of Blytheville. He was elected the first presi- 
dent of that institution and has served in that capacity ever since, having made 
the bank one of the strongest and most popular in the entire St. Francis Basin. 
He is also president of the J. C. Cobb undertaking establishment, which has 
recently erected a beautiful new home in Blytheville. In addition to his banking 
business, Mr. Robinson owns five thousand acres of the fertile land of that 
section, of which the major portion is in a high state of cultivation and the 
remainder in good timber. Mr. Robinson represented Mississippi County in 
the Legislature for the terms of 1911 and 1913, first by appointment of Governor 
Donaghey to fill a vacancy and then by election. He is a member of the Wood- 
men, Elks, Odd Fellows, Blytheville Chamber of Commerce and Back Bay 
Hunting & Fishing Club of Gulfport, Mississippi. He and Miss Mary Phillips 
were married August 3, 1903. Their children are : Thomas Holston, Sam 
Phillips, and Mary Elizabeth Robinson. 



518 




<&> </tc^ 



Wixiaf) ftap 




IRIAH RAY, banker, planter and retired merchant of Itta 
Bena, Mississippi, is a shining example of the manner in 
which the sturdy men who went to the Mississippi Delta have 
prospered with the development of that rich section. Mr. Ray 
was born March 6, 1850, near Greenboro, in Choctaw County, 
Mississippi, the son of John Wesley and Mary Ann (Strick- 
land) Ray. His father was a farmer over there and when the South went 
out of the union of the States, he went forth to try to maintain the right of 
the State of Mississippi to its sovereignty. That he enlisted to fight and not 
for a frolic is proved by the fact that he went with General Nathan Bedford 
Forrest, and rode with him all the way through to Gainesville. After the 
surrender there, the father returned, broken in fortune, but able to hold on 
to his farm. On this the lad went to work as a full hand at the age of fifteen 
years, where he put in his time until 1874. Then he moved over to the fringe 
of the hills and engaged in the strenuous career of cutting and rafting logs, 
mainly cypress, down the Coldwater, Tallahatchie and Yazoo rivers to Vicks- 
burg. He followed that vocation for six years and at the end of that time 
he was attracted to the rich Leflore County land and settled at Siberia, near 
the Marye Plantation. He and Mr. T. S. Marye formed the firm of Marye & 
Ray, Mr. Ray conducting a general merchandising business there under that 
name with great success for eight years. It was the real foundation of 
Mr. Ray's fortune. By the end of eight years, Mr. Ray had grown financially 
to the point where he moved from Siberia to Itta Bena, selling his interest in 
the Siberia business to Mr. Marye. At Itta Bena he went into the same line of 
business and this grew steadily from the beginning. Mr. Ray still regularly 
takes out a license to do a merchandise business, but he has practically retired 
from its management. Two years after going to Itta Bena he took part in 
the organization of the Bank of Itta Bena, now the First National Bank, and 
was elected its vice-president and later president. The bank opened with a 
capital stock of $25,000. In 1900 the capital was increased to $100,000 and now 
the surplus is the same amount. The bank has just completed a home for 
itself made of stone and costing $60,000, and is one of the strongest financial 
institutions in that section of the Delta. Mr. Ray is also a director in the 
Itta Bena Compress Company. In addition to his stock in these concerns, 
Mr. Ray owns a plantation of twelve hundred acres, having started plant- 
ing thirty-five years ago with three hundred and twenty acres. He also owns 
valuable city property in Itta Bena. Leflore County has had a habit for many 
years of electing only its most substantial, efficient and honest citizens to its 
board of supervisors. The people elected Mr. Ray in 1908 and again in 1912. 
Mr. Ray has never married. 



523 



3KB. <&. $ncfjarb 



I^ILLIAM GRIFFIN PRICHARD, planter, Seyppel, Arkansas, 

WJ was born in Coldwater, Mississippi, July 11, 1871, the son of 
7|y Alexander Allison (Dick) Prichard, and Mrs. Prichard, form- 
[JijW erly Miss Ella Elizabeth Chaffin. He was educated in a com- 
mon school near Coldwater, but at the age of nineteen years, 
he reached the conclusion that there was far more opportunity 
for his industry and ambition in the Delta country to the west of him than was 
afforded by the hills in which he had been reared. He was fortunate in that 
the first three connections that he formed in the lowlands were with the best 
of planters there. His first work was with the late Mr. John L. Cocke at 
Dubbs, in the lower portion of Tunica County. After several years there, 
Mr. Prichard went with the big firm of King & Anderson on one of their plan- 
tations near Friar Point, Mississippi, where he remained for three or four 
years. In 1902 he went across the Mississippi River and took charge of the 
plantations of the late Otto Seyppel at the river landing named for him in 
the lower portion of Crittenden County. It was here that Mr. Prichard's 
genius for planting and his business capacity had a fair chance to develop. 
He proved himself equal to every opportunity that arose and his success has been 
one of the most conspicuous of any planter along the river. In that country 
of planters, he is considered as having no superior in judgment as to the plant- 
ing, cultivation and gathering of crops of all kinds which grow in his section. 
His advice is constantly sought along those lines and its value is appreciated. 
Now his plantations in that section aggregate some four thousand acres with 
thirty-two hundred acres in cultivation. This land is mainly the beautiful, high 
sandy ridge land along the Mississippi River. Since 1917, Mr. Prichard has 
also been president of the Bass Planting Company, which owns some fifteen 
hundred acres of land in the same locality. From time immemorial that section 
of the country has had intercourse with the outside world only by means of 
the Mississippi River. Mr. Prichard was one of the pioneers in securing the 
legislation by which the people could tax themselves sufficiently heavy for the 
construction of hard-surfaced roads and then one of the most active factors 
in the development of the road system, to which he has given liberally of 
his money and his valuable time. He has taken an active interest In politics, 
not in the sense of seeking office for himself, but solely with the end in view 
of getting into high positions those who would best serve the community. 
He is a member of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. He was married 
October 17, 1914, his wife having formerly been Miss Bettie Burgett. She 
was born at Seyppel and is a member of one of the oldest and most highly 
respected families in Eastern Arkansas. 



524 





J 



OT. 2B. barker 




jILLIAM DOZIEL PARKER, Greenwood and Moorhead, 
Mississippi, one of the real, hardy pioneers in the develop- 
ment of the Mississippi Delta, especially Sunflower County, 
was born in Rankin County, Mississippi, June 19, 1872, the 
son of Samuel Tobias and Margaret Annie Parker, but he 
has been a resident of the Delta country since 1877. As a 
lad he went to work, first driving a team hauling brick and then logs. Sun- 
flower County then was probably unsurpassed anywhere in the country for the 
magnificent timber which its fertile lands contained. Its dense forests then 
were virgin in clear cow oak and long-bodied red oak, while many brakes held 
millions of feet of somber cypress. The wild life of the camp in these big 
forests and their subjugation held ever a strong fascination for the full-blooded 
young man and if he had any sporting blood in his veins it found ample scope 
in the chase after deer through the more open glades and fighting bears in 
the denser jungles, while the nights were made hideous by the hooting of the 
big horned owls interspersed with the screams of panthers, and the morning 
and evening twilights were filled with the doleful howling of wolves. It was 
in this close communion with real nature that Mr. Parker lived for fifteen years, 
spending that length of time with the Sunflower Lumber Company, being a 
contemporary of Sydney L. Dodds, president of that company, and in that 
time doing as much as any one man to convert the wilderness which he had 
invaded into the state of high production which it enjoys today and which 
is increasing so rapidly. Mr. Parker was one of the early timber men who 
had vision enough to foresee that the lands after the removal of the timber 
would have a greater value than they then had and in 1899 he bought a tract 
of two thousand acres. He closed out the timber and saw mill business which 
he had been engaged in for some years and began devoting his time to planting 
cotton and dealing in lands. He increased his land holdings to six thousand 
acres. He had the same success in his land dealings which he had enjoyed 
in the timber and mill business. In 1919 he sold thirty-four hundred acres of 
his holdings, retaining some forty-five hundred acres, which he plants. In 
1920 he built a magnificent colonial home in Greenwood, where he lives, but 
retains his interests in Sunflower County, being a director in the Citizens State 
Bank and a stockholder in the Co-operative Oil Mill of Moorhead. He is 
also a stockholder in the Memphis Packing Corporation of Memphis and in 
the Indianola Elevator Company of Indianola, Mississippi. He served as a 
member of the Board of Supervisors of Sunflower County. He is a member 
of the Greenwood Country Club. Mr. Parker and Miss Nora Duncan were 
married July 25, 1900. Their children are: Misses Annie Kavanaugh ("Kad- 
die"), Suzette and W. D. Jr. 



529 



a. i. jfflanrtjaU 




IRTHUR LEROY MARSHALL, Ruleville, Mississippi, al- 
though yet in the prime of a vigorous life, is one of the old- 
est native citizens of that section of Sunflower and at the 
same time one of the leading factors in the conversion of the 
wilderness that he first saw there into one of the garden spots 
of the world. The son of Berry Stowers and Louisa G. 
(McKenzie) Marshall, he was born January 19, 1862, four miles from where 
Ruleville now is. Then it was a howling wilderness, practically inaccessible 
except by river and its primeval forests probably never surpassed for the num- 
ber and size of its trees and the density of its canebrakes. Wild animals from 
bears and panthers down roamed the virgin forest at will, some affording easily 
gotten food for man and most of them preying upon any attempt at hus- 
bandry or agriculture. But the land which supported this wild growth was 
capable of supporting equally as magnificent growth of useful vegetable and 
animal life and it is the men of which Mr. Marshall is a type who in so short 
a period of years have restrained the flood waters and brought this fertile soil 
to where it does the bidding of mankind to supply the world with clothing 
and food. Mr. Marshall had a grade and high school education and then 
in 1881 took a special course in engineering and surveying at the McNutt High 
School. At the age of twenty years he began work on the estate of his father. 
His share of this after the death of the father was only 160 acres, as there 
were six children to be provided for. Even the small inheritance which he 
got was heavily involved with debts. At the present time he cultivates some 
twenty-two hundred and forty acres of as fine long staple cotton land as there 
is to be found on the face of the earth. He has seen the Yazoo Delta branch 
of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroad system come through his section 
of the country, beautiful little cities spring up every few miles along its right- 
of-way, and the broad fields grow broader both to the east and to the west. 
Mr. Marshall has been a leader in the moral and educational upbuilding of 
the county, and exemplifies a high ideal of citizenship that commands the 
respect of all, even the tough and rowdy who made the once unsavory reputa- 
tion of the "Yellow Dog." He is the type of leader who is public spirited to 
the point of sacrificing his private affair for the public good. He was a 
delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1920 at San Francisco 
which nominated Governor James M. Cox. He was a member of the road 
commission for two years, 1912 and 1913, and served as alderman for Rule- 
ville for four years. He is a Methodist, a Shriner of Hamassa Temple and 
a Knight of Pythias. He and Miss Sadie Davidson were married May 4, 1890. 
They have only one living child, a daughter, Miss Louisa Marshall. 



530 



Jpenrp loth 




jENRY LOEB, business man and philanthropist, Memphis, 
Tennessee, is a native of Memphis, having been born here 
August 29, 1860, the son of William L. and Amalia (Karla- 
bach) Loeb. He was educated in the public schools of Mem- 
phis and Christian Brothers College. Three days after hav- 
ing reached his majority, Mr. Loeb started a successful busi- 
ness with the late Sam Mook, in the gentleman's furnishing business, at the 
corner of Main and Jefferson. After six successful years Mr. Loeb with- 
drew from the firm and embarked for himself in the same line, with a laundry 
attached. This he operated for many years under the name of Henry Loeb, at 
the corner of Main Street and Monroe Avenue. Mr. Loeb added shirt making 
to the business, under the name of the Henry Loeb Shirt Company. Later, 
he disposed of that branch of the business. In 1892 Mitchell H. Rosenthal 
joined Mr. Loeb in the business and from that to this the main firm name has 
been Henry Loeb & Company, operating Loeb's Laundry and a number of sub- 
sidiary concerns. In 1905 the business was moved from Main Street to the 
new building, erected and owned by the concern, at Madison Avenue and 
Bayou Gayoso, one of the most commodious buildings for its end in the coun- 
try and containing an equipment and system second to none in its line in the 
United States. Mr. Loeb is vice-president and a large owner in the cleaning 
firm of Kraus & Company, his partner, Mr. Rosenthal, being president ; a direc- 
tor in the Model-Bluff City Laundry; a director in the Frank B. Hunter & 
Company Insurance Corporation ; a director in the Belgium Cleaning & Dyeing 
Company; a stockholder in the John O. Flautt Carriage Company; a stockholder 
in the Wolf River Sand Company, and many other enterprises. He is a mem- 
ber of the Rex Club and the Congregation Children of Israel. During all of 
his business life Mr. Loeb has been one of the largest givers to charities of 
all kinds in Memphis. He was one of the leaders in reorganizing the United 
Charities into the Associated Charities and in putting it on a firm basis. Since 
that time he has been a potent factor both through his own liberal contributions 
of money and especially through the valuable time and sound business judgment 
as well as kindness of heart that he has given to the organization in keeping 
it on a high plane of efficiency. Mr. Loeb is a lover of out-of-door sports, 
both with the rod and the gun. He was one of the heavy contributors and 
solicitors for the original Baptist Hospital fund. He has been a generous sup- 
porter of the Memphis Zoo and a substantial patron of the Memphis Amateur 
Athletic Association. Mr. Loeb and Miss Lulu Goldsmith were married Feb- 
ruary 8, 1892. They have four children: William, Henry Jr., Amelia Lee and 
Margaret. Each one of his boys was a lieutenant in the World War. 



535 



A. &♦ Heesler 




,AMUEL REEVES KEESLER, cotton buyer, planter, capital- 
ist and public spirited citizen of Greenwood, Mississippi, was 
born in Rockhill, South Carolina, November 17, 1866, the son 
of Samuel Golden and Sallie (Caston) Keesler. At the age 
of ten years he went to work in a store and with the wages 
that he earned went to the United States Arsenal at Charles- 
ton, South Carolina, which now is the Porter Academy. He completed the 
course there when he was twenty-three years of age and entered a shoe store 
in Charlotte, North Carolina. He remained in Charlotte until 1900, when he 
Borrowed $75 and went to Greenwood as a clerk in the furnishing goods store 
of Mr. A. M. Craig. Two years later he joined Mr. C. E. Wright in the 
business which now is the C. E. Wright Ice & Coal Company. When the ice 
plant burned, Mr. Keesler went with the Greenwood Compress & Storage Com- 
pany as assistant manager, but in a short time his capacity became so apparent 
to the directors that he was made vice-president and general manager, which 
position he held for thirteen years with such capacity that the receipts were 
increased from 17,000 to 100,000 bales per annum. In the meanwhile he and 
Mr. Wright had built the water and light plant, had erected the first telephone 
line in the county and fathered the sewer system for the city. In 1904 he and 
Pat A. Malone formed the cotton buying firm of Malone & Keesler, which 
ever since that date has been one of the largest and most reliable cotton 
buying and shipping firms in the Mid-South. Since 1906 he has devoted prac- 
tically all of his business time to his cotton interests, in the meanwhile having 
bought and sold heavily of Delta plantations. Now he owns and operates some 
twenty-five hundred acres, and aside from his interest in the firm of Malone & 
Keesler, is a member of the firm of W. M. Garrard & Company of Indianola, 
Mississippi, and of the firm of E. C. Brown & Company of Hope, Arkansas, 
both in the same line. He is vice-president of the Wade Hardware Company of 
Greenwood and of the Tri-State Tractor Company and owns stock in the First 
National Bank and Greenwood Banking & Trust Company. Under both Gov- 
ernors Vardaman and Noel he was major-general commanding the State 
National Guard. For fifteen years he was president of the Greenwood City 
School Board and built two fine school buildings at a cost of half a million 
dollars. He has been a trustee of the Public Library since its foundation, and 
fathered the Y. M. C. A. community work for boys. He served a term as 
supervisor for Leflore County and was on the good-roads commission which 
floated the $600,000 bond issue, and is a director in the Chamber of Commerce. 
He and Miss Charlotte M. Parish were married June 4, 1894. Their children 
are: William P., Charlotte Wright, Isabella Marr, Mary Nash, Ethel Caston, and 
Ella Fountain. A son, S. R., Jr., was killed in France in October, 1918. 



536 




/ r , fc> , (7H&?^*- 




ft. C. Srtom 

HE late Robert Clell Irwin, Tunica, Mississippi, for half a 
century one of the strongest factors in the material and moral 
development of the upper Mississippi Delta, was born in Meck- 
lenburg County, North Carolina, April 5, 1840, and died March 
3, 1909, full of years, righteousness and riches in the land 
in which he had prospered and which he had done so much 
to make great, surrounded by a large and loving family and respected by all 
who knew him. His parents were James Irwin, Jr., and Elizabeth (Rogers) 
Irwin, of that sturdy Mecklenburg Presbytery stock which declared its inde- 
pendence before the American colonies acted. When Robert was but ten years 
of age, the family started to Tunica County, traveling overland in carriages 
and wagons with their slaves and livestock. When the party reached Nash- 
ville, Tennessee, the parents became ill and completed the journey by steam- 
boat, leaving Robert and his fourteen-year-old brother, John, to finish the 
trip overland in charge of faithful slaves. The parents reached their destina- 
tion a month ahead of the children. The father acquired tremendous acreage, 
below where the City of Tunica now is, and sent the son to Hanover College 
in Indiana. Mr. Irwin was there when the Civil War opened and hastened 
South to join the Confederacy, where he was a gallant cavalryman from 
April, 1861, to May 10, 1865, when he was discharged. He served largely 
under Forrest and was one of the largest contributors to the monument erected 
in Memphis to his former commander. But that was characteristic of the 
man, as there was no movement in his section for the general good 
or improvement to which he did not give freely both of his time and his 
means. After the surrender he returned to Tunica County and threw him- 
self with all of the force of his character into the reclamation of his 
country from the wreck of the war and its redemption from carpet-bag rule. 
As a member of the Ku Klux Klan and an uncompromising Democrat, he 
was a strong factor in both. He never sought office, but for fourteen years 
was a member of the Upper Yazoo Levee Board. When the railroad built 
through his plantation and located a depot at Tunica, just north of him, he 
opened a store there, later becoming president of its first bank and still later 
of the Planters Oil Mill. Mr. Irwin and Miss Annie Elizabeth Owen were 
married May 9, 1865. Their children, in addition to three who died young, are : 
Mrs. Georgie Elizabeth Abbay, Mrs. James Thomas Lowe, Mrs. William Rice 
Kirby, and Mrs. S. Richard Leatherman ; and their grandchildren are: 
Mrs. Percy Howard, Robert I. Abbay, Miss Elizabeth Lowe, Mrs. James S. 
Driver, Jr., Robert I. Lowe, Miss Charlie Lowe, Jack Lowe, Campbell Mangum, 
Glyndah Marie Lowe, Bob Irwin Mangum, Mrs. Hugh L. Fontaine, Miss Ann 
Leatherman, S. R. Leatherman, Jr., Irwin Leatherman, and William Leatherman. 



541 



C. C. ^ugfces 




,HARLES CALHOUN HUGHES, Memphis, Tennessee, 
originator of the Bynn Yann System of selling groceries and 
head of Bynn Yann's Company, is a native of Coosa 
County, Alabama, where he was born August 13, 1867, the 
son of John Dauson and Jane Hughes. The family moved to 
northern Mississippi when Mr. Hughes was quite young, and 
he received his early education in the public schools of Lafayette County. 
Then he took a course at the Iuka Normal Institute at Iuka, Mississippi, and at 
the completion of the course there he went to the National Normal University 
at Lebanon, Ohio. He holds the degree of bachelor of science and master of 
accounts. Mr. Hughes had completed all of these courses before having attained 
his majority and spent the first few years of his mature life as an educator. In 
1888 he organized Tula College, at Tula, Mississippi, and was its president from 
the beginning until 1904. For five years following that time he was principal of 
the public schools at Delhi, Oklahoma. In 1912 he became president of the 
Union Fire-Sides of America Life Insurance Company, which position he 
retained until 1916, during the last two years of that time being also secretary 
of the Business Men's Club of Oxford, Mississippi. Then he moved to Memphis 
and began actively the development of the Bynn Yann's System, which he 
claims is the most economical and attractive manner yet devised for passing 
groceries from the retailer to the consumer. The plan was tried in a small way 
in 1919, during the latter part of which year Mr. Hughes perfected the system. 
In the early part of 1920 the idea began to spread and soon assumed the propor- 
tions of a prairie fire from Memphis into Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, 
Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri. Within a few months 
ten stores were opened in Memphis and near one hundred fifty in the adjacent 
territory. All of these stores are operated under the system originated by Mr. 
Hughes and to some extent under his direction, he having an income from each 
of them. Mr. Hughes states that the great desire for the remainder of his 
business career is to reduce the cost of groceries to the consumer through the 
Bynn Yann stores which he hopes to establish throughout the country, and 
that his further ambition is to be able to assist those in need, because of their 
being in need, whether they deserve it or not. His daily walk and conversation 
with that high ideal in mind makes him a most useful member of any community. 
He believes further that boosters live and knockers die ; that Yesterday is dead — 
why mourn it? that Tomorrow is unborn — why depend on it? and that Today 
is ours — why not use it? Mr. Hughes is a Missionary Baptist, a Mason and 
a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He married Miss Flora Little in 
1892. The union has been blessed by six children: Zella May, Guy T., Qua D., 
Coe Rel, Ora Dell and Eda Hughes. 



542 



3T. <0. (^osrtjorn 




AMES OLIVER GOSHORN, who owns in Memphis, Ten- 
nessee, the largest factory in the United States for the manu- 
facture of plow and cultivator handles, was born in Dan- 
ville, Illinois, June 26, 1880, the son of Thomas and Lillian 
Goshorn. Left an orphan at eight, he began life working on 
farms of Indiana and Illinois until nineteen years old. Denied 
the usual opportunities for securing an education, he managed to get in a few 
scattering weeks each winter. At eighteen he had saved enough to take a four 
months' term at the Northern Indiana Normal, Valparaiso, Indiana. March 
found him again at work on an Illinois farm, where he found employment 
at eighteen dollars a month. He answered the president's call for volunteers 
in September, 1899, and was sent to the Philippines in November, where he spent 
two years in active service. On his return home in 1901 he entered a business 
college in Indianapolis, Indiana. Five months later with his savings exhausted, 
he began his business career as a stenographer and bookkeeper at eight dollars 
a week. Coming South in 1903, he entered the employ of a cooperage firm 
in Arkansas, in which business he remained for four years, working as office 
man, mill foreman and timber inspector. July 5, 1907, he pitted his brains and 
energy against money and formed the partnership of Dugger & Goshorn, buying 
out the G. B. Lesh Manufacturing Company's plant in New South Memphis. 
This firm was manufacturing plow and cultivator handles, employing ten men, 
and marketing about $30,000 worth annually. No sooner had he taken charge 
of the new business than the panic of 1907 struck. His partner became dis- 
couraged and quit in November. Months of hard work and discouragement 
followed, but he finally got the business on a paying basis, incorporating it in 
July, 1910, with $30,000 capital stock. In July, 1913, the capital stock was 
raised to $100,000. The business was constantly enlarged until, when destroyed 
by fire in February, 1919, it employed from one hundred and twenty-five to one 
hundred and fifty men, had outdistanced all competitors and was doing an annual 
business of over $250,000, selling throughout the United States, Canada and Mex- 
ico. In March following the fire, the firm of Dugger & Goshorn Company was 
liquidated and Mr. Goshorn began the erection of a modern plant, designed espe- 
cially for the manufacture of plow and cultivator handles and wagon gear woods. 
The new shop, with all machines driven by individual electric motors, began 
operation June 1, 1920, with double the capacity of the old plant, and is now 
making more handles than all competitors combined. He attributes his success- 
to hard work, perseverance, faith in, and service to his God. He is a member of 
the Chamber of Commerce, Lumbermen's Club and Rotary Club, and takes an 
active part in the civic and religious life of the city. Mr. Goshorn and Miss 
Mary Dugger were married January 27, 1904. She died February 27, 1919, 
having been the mother of seven children. He and Miss Marion Pitman 
were married March 18, 1920. 



547 



Jf reb Grittman 




RED GRITTMAN, planter and capitalist, Drew, Mississippi, 
although a native of Germany, showed himself to be one hun- 
dred per cent American during the World War when he gave 
so liberally of both his time and his money to the Liberty loan 
and Red Cross drives, and when two of his sons, although 
under age for the draft, volunteered for military service under 
the Stars and Stripes, one of them succeeding in entering the army. Mr. Gritt- 
man was born in Baden, Germany, June 28, 1865, the son of Jonas and Sophie 
Grittman. After having received a common school education, he came to the 
United States in 1882, landing in New York City, and went to work for a pack- 
ing house. He remained there for eighteen months and then went to Canada 
for a short time. Returning to the United States he worked on a farm in Iowa. 
The following year he moved to Red River County, Texas, and made a cotton 
crop. In 1887 he was engaged in railroad construction and in timber cutting 
in southeast Missouri. In fact, he spent some twenty years in the timber and 
stave business, pursuing it with signal success almost all over the United States. 
In 1894 he opened a series of stave camps near Merigold, Mississippi. Two 
years later, with the backing of Mr. W. B. Parks, he went into the business of 
exporting staves. In 1898 he moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, the upper 
portion of which then was practically a wilderness, and opened a line of stave 
camps near where the town of Drew afterwards was built. The following 
year he formed a partnership with Mr. J. M. Goff, now a leading man of Mem- 
phis, and opened a general supply business, their store being the second one built 
in Drew. In the same year, he organized the firm of Grittman & Peters. This 
firm manufactured staves by the millions for export to France, Germany and 
England. In 1903, Mr. Grittman helped organize the first bank established in 
the northern portion of Sunflower County and he became vice-president of the 
bank. In 1904 he organized the Clear Lake Lumber Company. The following 
year he organized the Bank of Drew and became president of it. Believing in 
the future of Delta lands he began clearing four hundred acres in 1902. Ten 
years later his planting interests had become so large that Mr. Grittman practi- 
cally withdrew and sold all his other business interests to manage personally 
his planting operations. At the present time he is the owner of two thousand 
acres of farm land, and in partnership with Mr. W. R. Barksdale of Memphis 
he owns fifteen hundred acres more which is also under his management. 
Mr. Grittman is a director in the Merchants & Planters Bank of Drew, and in 
the Bank of Clarksdale and the Coahoma County Cotton Company of Clarks- 
dale. He is a Methodist, Shriner and an Elk. He and Miss Lilly Graham were 
married October 25, 1896. Their children are: W. S., Julius D., Miss Katherine, 
Howard and Edward Grittman. 



548 




■nnw 




^l^C 






&. C. #arnett 

[OBERT CALVIN GARNETT, Indianola, Mississippi, planter 

R^ and business man, was born in LeFIore County, Mississippi, 
(£T\ October 22, 1871, the son of Warren Henry and Lula Ann 
@y (Lowrey) Gamett. After having completed the course in 
the common schools of Holmes County, Mississippi, he attended 
the State Agricultural & Mechanical College at Starkville for 
three years and then took a commercial course in a Memphis business college. 
A native of the Delta, his eye was always set on it and at the age of twenty 
years, he went to Indianola and began his career as bookkeeper in the general 
merchandise store of G. W. Faison & Son. He spent three years with that firm 
in Indianola and Shaw, and then went to work in the store of his father at old 
Johnsonville, now Baird, where he did also a general merchandise business. 
After a year there, Mr. Garnett went to work for the Memphis house of Mallory, 
Crawford & Company, being the first grocery salesman that that old firm ever 
had in the Delta. After a year with that firm, he spent the same length of 
time as bookkeeper for the firm of McGee, Dean & Company of Leland. In 
those positions he had seen most of the Delta, but in it he found no other place 
that has the attractions for him that Sunflower County possessed and in 1898 
he returned there and engaged in planting cotton in its fertile soil. He soon 
became one of the successful planters in his county and one of its leading citi- 
zens, as his father had been after having moved there from the adjoining county 
of Le~Flore. His father had been a member of the board of supervisors in 
Sunflower County, and in 1902 the son was elected to the same position. In 
1911 he was elected sheriff and tax collector for his county and served for four 
years from January 1, 1912. On retiring from the sheriff's office Mr. Garnett 
added dealing in real estate to his plantation business and during the year 1919 
his firm sold plantations and timber land in the Delta to the aggregate value of 
one million dollars. Mr. Garnett was one of the organizers of the Bank of 
Indianola and at one time was its president. However, he gave this position 
up to devote all of his time to his plantation, real estate, general insurance and 
other private business, in which, thanks to his ability and sterling honesty, he has 
been signally successful. He is a warden in the Episcopal Church, of which he 
has been a member for many years. In Free Masonry, he is a Knight Templar 
and a member of the Mystic Shrine, and twice has been chosen illustrious mas- 
ter of Council Lodge at Indianola. He is also a member of the Knights of 
Pythias and of the Odd Fellows. Mr. Garnett was married April 22, 1896, to 
Miss Georgia Bookout. Of this union there is but one living child, Miss Corine 
Estelle Garnett, but Mr. and Mrs. Garnett have adopted a small boy, Claude 
Kellum Garnett, whom they are rearing as their own. 



553 



€, a. ©alton 




|DWARD AVANT DALTON, senior member of the important 
real estate firm of Edward A. Dalton & Son, Clarksdale, Mis- 
sissippi, is a native of Tennessee, having been born in Mem- 
phis, August 5, 1869, the son of Rufus L. and Margaret 
(Price) Dalton. Conditions at that time were such that Mr. 
Dalton was able to get the benefit of only two years at school, 
from eight to ten years of age. Then he went out into the world to make his 
own way and the first work that he got was as cash boy in one of the large dry 
goods stores of the city. He remained in that position until he was thirteen 
years of age and then began on the bottom rung of the ladder in the line in 
which since that time he has gone to the top, and in doing so been such a valuable 
factor in the development of this section of the country, especially the wonderful 
Delta of the Mississippi River. At thirteen years of age he went into a large 
real estate office as office boy and remained with that firm for five years. When 
he was eighteen years of age he went into the timber and lumber business. Dur- 
ing the eight years that he remained in that line he added to the routine of the 
real estate business which he had previously mastered a thorough knowledge of 
the timberland business. He owned and operated saw mills and by personal 
experience in logging and milling got to be recognized as one of the best judges 
in the country of the amount of timber on a tract of land, the ease or difficulty 
of its removal, and the ultimate value of the product after the timber should have 
been put through the saw mill. Then he returned to the real estate business 
where he was able to put the information which he had collected to a valuable 
use. He spent twelve years in Leland, going there when that now prosperous 
city was of but little importance and being one of the large factors in laying the 
foundation upon which the Leland of today has been so well builded. From 
Leland he came to his old home in Memphis where he spent nine years with 
marked success in the real estate business. In 1913 he picked out Clarksdale 
as the center of the section in which there would be a rapid development. He 
moved from Memphis there and has been one of the most important factors in 
the wonderful growth of that city and the surrounding country since that time. 
His firm has handled a large proportion of the big deals there since that time. 
In fact, it makes a specialty of large propositions. Mr. Dalton's son, Mr. Rufus 
L. Dalton, the junior member of the firm, is one of the most active and one of 
the youngest Shriners in the State. His oldest son, William Edward, was 
killed in France as a member of Company A, 113th Machine Gun Battalion, 
Thirtieth Division, A. E. F. Mr. Dalton has been married twice: first January 
5, 1893, to Miss Mamie Brown, and in 1905 to Miss Laura Price of Oakland, 
California. 



554 



A. 3. Corlep 




^^| ROM a dependent orphan at the age of thirteen years to an 

Ffife? unusually wealthy, public-spirited and influential citizen in the 
iTO space of thirty years, all by his own pluck, energy and brains, 
Wl is the career of Samuel A. Corley of Coahoma County, Missis- 
/\/v7$£< s 'PPi- He was born February 14, 1871, the son of John W. 
vScc^^SSSSy and Mary (Nolan) Corley, and came with them to Coahoma 
County in 1872. After their death he worked in the plantation store of Colonel 
William H. Stovall for six years, obtaining what public-school education he 
could. Then he went to the Wyatt-Sharp Business College, completing the 
three-months' course in six weeks. Then he spent several years in timber 
business and went into the mercantile business in Bartlett, Texas, where, in 
December, 1896, he and Miss Frances Smith were married. The following year 
they returned to Farrell, Coahoma County, Mississippi, where Mr. Corley went 
into the ginning business, later adding a store and gradually accumulating land. 
His sterling business qualities showed themselves from the start and by 1920 
he had acquired some fourteen hundred acres of the finest land to be found 
on the face of the earth, which he cultivates in connection with his tremendous 
mercantile business. In addition to this, Mr. Corley is connected with various 
other successful business enterprises, among them being vice-president of the 
Commercial Bank of Clarksdale, and a director in the Johnson-Harlow Lumber 
Company, the Webb-Sumner Oil Mill, Coahoma County Cotton Company, Coa- 
homa County Milling Company and several oil wells in Kentucky and Texas. 
He is also a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Chamber of Commerce and 
the Rotary Club of Clarksdale. Mr. and Mrs. Corley live with their two children, 
Miss Mayrene and Aubrey, in Clarksdale, where he is actively connected with 
every movement for the improvement of the city and county and the same 
splendid business ability which made his life a success is of great value to his 
community. In addition to his own business affairs Mr. Corley has had the 
guardianship of the six children of his dead brother, making ten people in all for 
whom he attends to business. In the late World War, Mr. Corley gave con- 
tinuously of his time and served on many important committees. He was a 
member of the Thousand Dollar War Savings Club and took a membership for 
every member of his family of ten, save for one nephew who was in France 
offering his life for the cause. In the beginning of the war, Mr. Corley obli- 
gated himself to take one per centum of all of the calls of the government on 
his county, both Liberty loans and donations. He kept this obligation with the 
same faith that he has kept every other obligation in life and he will go down 
in history as a true patriot. No young man ever went to him for advice or help 
without receiving more than he expected. No worthy cause ever failed to receive 
aid from Mr. Corley. 



559 



A. %. Calfjoun 




|AMUEL L. CALHOUN of Memphis, Tennessee, one of the 
best known and most successful life insurance men in the 
Mid-South, was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, on September 
8, 1868, the son of the late Margaret and John R. Calhoun. 
After completing the course in the public schools of his home 
city, he was instructed in law and English literature for years 
by the late Professor Garrett of Princeton University. Mr. Calhoun began 
the practice of law in Owensboro at the age of eighteen years, following that 
profession for a number of years with a marked degree of success, at the same 
time developing his natural talent for oratory. In 1894 he went to New York 
from thence to Boston for the purpose of doing special advertising, returning 
to his native State during the tempestuous political times of 1896. From child- 
hood, Mr. Calhoun had loved politics ; in fact at the age of fourteen he stumped 
the Second Congressional district of Kentucky for the Democratic congress- 
man, W. T. Ellis. He reached an agreement with Mark A. Hanna, commander- 
in-chief of the McKinley forces, that in the event of McKinley's receiving the 
electoral vote of Kentucky and of Bradley's being elected governor the United 
States government would liquidate the Kentucky war claims which had been 
held in abeyance for so many years. Then Mr. Calhoun threw himself actively 
into the Kentucky campaign, being one of the main factors in delivering the 
electoral vote of Kentucky for McKinley, and in securing the election of Brad- 
ley. Through the loyalty of Bradley and the tireless energy of Mr. Calhoun's 
only brother, Captain C. C. Calhoun, now of Washington, D. C, the pre- 
election agreement with Senator Hanna was carried out and the old war claim 
debt was paid in full. Largely through Mr. Calhoun's personal efforts, his 
home State was relieved of that burden of indebtedness under which she had 
been laboring for so many years. In 1898 Mr. Calhoun, profiting by his broad 
knowledge of national affairs, again embarked upon a nation-wide advertising 
campaign. In 1902 he became connected with the State Mutual Life Assurance 
Company of Worcester, Massachusetts, in Evansville, Indiana. He also became 
prominently identified with the political life of Indiana, but upon the advice of 
friends he refused the nomination for congress and in February, 1904, he came 
to Memphis, where his political views coincided with his friends' views. Since 
that time he has been general agent and financial representative in Tennessee for 
the State Mutual and has induced them to invest millions of dollars in Memphis 
on account of his belief in her future. During the World War, Mr. Calhoun 
demonstrated his loyalty to the boys in the trenches by delivering hundreds of 
his 4-minute speeches in their behalf. Mr. Calhoun and Miss Jessie M. Jaseph, 
youngest daughter of the late Colonel Jaseph of Evansville, Indiana, were mar- 
ried on October 20, 1897. The children of this union are Lloyd J., Harriett M., 
John C, and Samuel S. 



560 




$ <2u*n^4AL<e<J . U> Cks££v~-**^? 



/ 





4d/X \?« 




3T. TO. Jf arlep 




|OHN WILLIAM FARLEY, lawyer, Memphis, Tennessee, is 
a native of Hardeman County, where he was born on the farm 
of his father near Whiteville, March 4, 1878, the son of 
William E. and Susannah E. Farley. He comes of an old West 
Tennessee family, his great grandfather, Farley, having set- 
tled near Macon in Fayette County, in 1835. His grand- 
father, W. W. Farley, was a lifelong Democrat, reared in Fayette County but 
later he moved to Hardeman County, where he served for many years as sheriff 
and clerk of the county court. Mr. Farley's father traveled in the Memphis 
territory as salesman for a wholesale dry goods house for fifteen years. Mr. 
Farley grew up on the farm out from Whiteville and attended the Jefferson 
Institute at Whiteville. At sixteen years of age he went to work for the Ten- 
nessee Midland Railroad, now the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad, 
as a clerk at Jackson, Tennessee. He was so proficient in his work there that 
at the age of twenty-one years he was chief clerk and cashier in the office. His 
work attracted the attention of the general officers of the company and he was 
promoted to a position in the auditing department in the main office at Nash- 
ville. He remained there but a short time and then resigned to enter Vander- 
bilt University, where he was graduated with the degree of bachelor of laws 
in 1902. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Farley accepted a position in the general 
offices of the Southern Railway in Washington, District of Columbia, but spent 
only a short time with that company, resigning to enter Columbia University and 
pursue his studies in the law. He received his degree of master of laws from 
that institution in 1903 and the following year the degree of master of diplo- 
macy. Determined to go to the end of the study of law, he received in 1906 
from the George Washington University the degree of doctor of civil law. The 
faculties of these institutions in Washington were composed of the leading men 
of learning in the United States. While at school, Mr. Farley became a mem- 
ber of the Kappa Alpha fraternity, and since has joined the Masons and the 
Lawyers' Club. While in Washington, Mr. Farley passed the civil service 
examinations and worked for a time in the pension office and later in the bureau 
of corporations. Mr. Farley resigned his position in 1905 and came to Memphis 
to practice law. He was chairman of the committee of one hundred young 
men which raised a fund to help build the present Y. M. C. A. building; was 
secretary of the committee which secured the State Normal School for Mem- 
phis; is lecturer on medical jurisprudence at the University of Tennessee; 
supervised the taking of the 1910 census for his district; was Republican nomi- 
nee for congress in 1916; and is chairman of the City Market Commission. He 
and Miss Tempe Somervell Meux were married December 7, 1910. 



565 



f. &. Colling 




figJOHN REASON COLLINS, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the 
&u largest distributors of coal in the South, also a large operator 

J*M) of coal mines of his own, is one of the best posted men in the 
Sv/£ country in that line of industry. He was born January 29, 
1865, at Hartford, Kentucky, the son of James F. and Mary 
(Midkiff) Collins. He attended the public schools at home 
until he was eighteen years of age and then went to Render, Kentucky, where 
he spent three years working around coal mines, first on the tipple, then as 
clerk and later as bookkeeper. Then he went to Central City, Kentucky, and 
entered the employ of the Central Coal & Iron Company as a bookkeeper. It 
required but a few years for Mr. Collins to realize the possibilities for the 
expansion of the company's business throughout the South and also for the 
officials of the company to appreciate that Mr. Collins had the capacity to make 
that expansion. The outcome was that in 1893, Mr. Collins came to Memphis 
and took charge of the office of the company here, and from that time he has 
been one of the largest factors here in that line of industry. In 1897 he organ- 
ized, with Memphis as the home office, the Southern Coal Company, taking 
over the branch office of the Central Coal & Iron Company and becoming dis- 
tributor in this section for that concern, he being the sole owner of the distribut- 
ing company. From that time on the expansion of the business was more 
rapid. In 1905 he put a salesman for the company in New Orleans, Louisiana, 
and the business there developed to the point that in 1914, he opened an office 
there. The following year he extended to the West with the opening of an 
office at Dallas, Texas. In 1918, he went into the Alabama field with the open- 
ing of an office at Birmingham, and the year following he sent the Southern 
Coal Company into the Louisville (Kentucky) territory. Now it is one of the 
largest distributors of coal in the entire South, but does no mining. However, 
Mr. Collins is the owner of two coal mines of his own. In 1918, he acquired 
valuable coal properties at Delmar, Alabama, and formed the Delmar Mining 
Company, which has an output of some two hundred tons per day. In 1920 
he formed the Saragossa Mining Company, with large holdings at Saragossa, 
Alabama, incorporated under the laws of Delaware with stock of no par value, 
and having an output of five hundred tons per day. He owns both of these 
companies. In addition to his coal business, Mr. Collins is interested with 
Mr. F. W. Dugan in the Dugan Lumber Company, with mills at Byng, Missis- 
sippi. He is a member of the Tennessee Club, Colonial Country Club and 
Chamber of Commerce in Memphis, and the Edgewater Golf and South Shore 
Country Clubs of Chicago. He was married in 1887 to Miss Kate Hardwick. 
They have two children, Miss Annie and Kathryne. He was married again, 
December 23, 1914, to Miss Elsa Fleischauer. 



566 



m a. &mt 



William Archibald swift, Swiftown, Mississippi, for 

W, thirty years one of the strong men in the development of the 
7aM lower portion of LeFlore County from the wilderness that it 
jjjy) then consisted of into the high state of material and social 
progress of today, is typical of those pioneers who force their 
way to the front no matter what obstacles stand in the way. 
He was born in Carroll County, Mississippi, not far from Duck Hill, May 2, 
1854, the son of William Archibald and Susan (Stokes) Swift. The death of 
his father left him an orphan at the age of nine years, so that he was able to get 
little education, only a few years at the public schools in Grenada County. At 
the age of twelve years he went to work on a farm near Duck Hill and remained 
there for two years, when he and his mother moved to Providence, Mississippi, 
where he began farming to make a support for his mother and himself. He 
remained there for twelve years and then moved back to Duck Hill. By the time 
that he got back to Duck Hill, although young in years, he was mature far 
beyond his actual age for the hard times that he had endured had developed 
him rapidly. A man of less ambition and courage would have surrendered to 
the difficulties in the way from the days of his youth up and have been con- 
tented to live a life of mediocrity, but Mr. Swift was not of that class of 
humanity. He prospered at Duck Hill during the eleven years that he lived 
there the second time, and with prosperity his vision broadened. He felt that 
there was more opportunity for him in the fertile lands of the Delta than in 
the hills and in 1890 he bought two thousand acres of land in the southwest 
corner of LeFlore County, miles from any railroad at that time and several 
miles from the Yazoo River, the only means of communication with the out- 
side world, and, except in the dry season, the roads to that were all but impas- 
sable. Only five hundred of the two thousand acres were in cultivation, and 
Mr. Swift, with his indomitable energy began the task of putting the rest of 
the land under the plow. After a time the railroad came down from Itta Bena 
and Mr. Swift had the pleasure of seeing his section become one of the finest 
and most highly developed in the Delta. He cleared up fifteen hundred acres 
of woodland and some years ago when his son married, he gave him a nice 
plantation, and now gives his time to the active management of the portion of 
the estate which he retained. The railroad station at his plantation was named 
for him and in 1908 was incorporated as a village. He is a director in the 
First National Bank at Itta Bena, one of the strongest financial institutions in 
that section of the State, and also a stockholder in many other institutions. 
He is a Mason and a member of the Baptist Church. Mr. Swift and Miss Mary 
Sibley were married March 2, 1878. Their children are Joe Willie, Emma, 
Marv and D. F. Swift. 



571 



ft. Jf . Currie 





[OBERT FRANK CURRIE, merchant and planter, Craw- 
fordsville, Arkansas, one of the active factors in the develop- 

R(zS. ment of the central portion of Crittenden County, is a native 
fl~y of Tennessee. He was born in Henning, April 26, 1873, the 
son of David Bernard and Jane Evelyn (Phillips) Currie. 
His grandfather, Doctor D. P. Phillips, a native of Orange 
Courthouse, Virginia, and a graduate from the Jefferson Medical College in 
Philadelphia, was one of the early gentlemen to settle in that county, long 
before the advent of the first railroad. Mr. Currie's father also was one of the 
most active men in the development of that portion of West Tennessee, having 
erected the first steam gin in Lauderdale County. He gave four years of his 
life to the Confederacy and died in 1877 when his son, Robert, was four years 
old. The family lived then in Henning, Durhamville, Ripley, Brownsville and 
Memphis, settling in Chelsea just beyond the then city limits, where he went to 
school, also going to the Sunday school of the "Brick Church," into which he 
was baptised. They moved then to Grenada, Mississippi, where he attended 
school, until the family moved back to Memphis. He was then twelve years of 
age and about that time went to work, attending the Hope night school at night 
and by days working for the late dimming Johnson's "Pure Sure, Hope Soap" 
factory. He worked as an apprentice and mechanic for a time for D. Schwart- 
zenberg & Company and then put in some years with the old Milburn Gin & 
Machinery plant. It was during the time that he was with that company that 
he and some other lads working there did the novel act of employing a teacher 
themselves. Miss Minnie Moseley, to teach them at night while they worked in 
the day. He also attended Leddin's Business College, and for a time clerked 
and kept books for Mr. Gatchell. In 1889, he went to Vincent, Arkansas, and 
clerked for some years in a country store, also being agent for the railroad 
company. In 1897, with a cash capital of $300, he went into business for him- 
self there as a merchant, and the first year did a business aggregating $18,500, 
shipping three hundred bales of cotton. Later Joseph B. Stuart of Memphis 
put $2,000 into the business with him and the firm was Stuart & Currie for 
two years when Mr. Currie bought him out for $4,500. He also bought out 
Herbert F. Avery at Crawfordsville and moved there as a merchant in 1900. 
This business has been pushed by him until today it is one of the best in his 
county. He has also bought, developed and sold a great deal of land, still 
retaining a nice tract. He served four terms as mayor of Crawfordsville up 
to 1917, and for nine years preceding 1920 was president of the special school 
district. He married January 7, 1899, Miss Phebe F., daughter of Major R. F. 
Crittenden. Their children are: Francis Crittenden, Robert Frank, James 
Lewis, Mary Louisa and Roberta Genevieve. 



572 



3foJm Beetb 




JOHN DEETH, Memphis, Tennessee, head of the Deeth Manu- 
facturing Company and one of the most progressive men in 
the city for the development of the community along all good 
lines, is a native of England, having been born September 5, 
1875, at Leicester, the son of William Ephriam and Hannah 
(Murray) Deeth. The father gave the lad a good education 
at Loughborough College, S. W., London, England, where he finished the course 
in 1893. Upon going out into the world, young Deeth yearned for wider oppor- 
tunities in which to exercise his activity than he saw in the settled old country 
of his nativity, and in 1893 came to the United States, locating in Orange, New 
Jersey, where he had distant relatives and where he spent six months. Through 
friends whom he had made he met the Honorable Russell A. Alger. The for- 
mer Secretary of War took a strong liking to the lad and gave him a position in 
his gigantic lumber business in Michigan. Later he drifted into the manufac- 
ture of fruit and grape products. He spent some time in Chicago in connection 
with that line of work and in 1897 came to Memphis. When he arrived here 
he was without resources in the common use of that word as applicable only to 
money or financial credit, but in his indomitable energy, vivid imagination, clear 
vision and sterling integrity he possessed resources which no amount of money 
could buy. When these were coupled, as in his case, with a rare faculty for 
making friends and in inspiring them with confidence in him, it was but a short 
time until he had capital at his command. He worked in various capacities here 
for two years and at the end of that time he had the backing of some of the 
wealthiest and best business men in the city in the organization of the Vine 
Products Company. They put in the money. Mr. Deeth supplied a degree of 
information as to the bacteriology of all kinds of fermentation that was amazing 
to his associates and probably never surpassed by any man in the Mid-South. 
He not only knew the chemistry of these minute entities, as he knew his alpha- 
bet, but he knew equally well how to make them work for the production of a 
given result, and beyond this possessed the executive ability to manage the busi- 
ness properly. The company opened auspiciously, but changed conditions after 
two years caused its liquidation. Mr. Deeth then became president of the National 
Fruit Products Company, but sold his entire interest in that after nine years of 
active service. In 1915 he organized the Deeth Manufacturing Company, of 
which he is the active head and practically sole owner. It has been a success 
from the beginning. Mr. Deeth is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and 
of Calvary Episcopal Church. He and Miss Kate Minnie Brown were married 
in Memphis January 15, 1902. They have two children: Hilda and Muriel, with 
whom they lead a delightful life in their beautiful home on Kenilworth Place. 



577 



Jfflr*. JMen B. &o$etioom 

J^RS. HELEN D. ROSEBOOM, pioneer business woman of 

MJ?J Clarksdale, Mississippi, and probably the most extensive 
?aM woman-dealer in real estate and investment broker in the 
y?W Mid-South, is a native of Iowa, later moved to Illinois and 
moved from there to the Delta solely because, after a thor- 
ough investigation, she saw the great possibilities of that sec- 
tion of the country. Mrs. Roseboom is the daughter of Edward and Katherine 
Dowdell of Iowa Falls, Iowa, where she was born September 19, 1874. The 
lands of her native State were fertile, but the climate was severe and the sea- 
sons were short. She heard of the wonderful alluvial valley of the Missis- 
sippi River, largely the soil of her home State moved by Nature to a more gen- 
erous clime, and in 1905 made a trip over the entire Delta of Mississippi to 
learn from her own eyes what was this land of which she heard so much. It 
surpassed her expectations, and after a careful inspection of the entire Delta, 
she bought a plantation then just outside the city of Clarksdale. For ten years 
she continued to live in Illinois, but came South each season to look after her 
Mississippi interests. The lure of the Delta finally became too strong longer to 
be resisted, and, in 1915, she moved her domicile to Clarksdale. From the time 
of her first purchase in the Delta, she felt certain that the Mississippi lands 
should and would equal if not surpass those of Illinois, Indiana and Iowa, for 
the annual yield of the crops on the Southern lands exceeded by far that of 
the Northern ones, but still the price of the one was far below that of the other. 
She saw the lands of the Delta begin to increase in price, and then the prices 
to go up by leaps and bounds. The game was attractive, offering rare opportuni- 
ties for energy and vision in the future. In 1916 she went actively into the real 
estate business, opening an office under the firm name of H. D. Roseboom. 
From the first she dealt not only in plantations but also timber lands, and the 
"pep" that she put into the business made it grow from the start. Later she 
added investments to the business, and prospered also along that line. That now is 
her main business, and it is one of the biggest in her line in the Delta, and 
probably the biggest in the country directed and owned entirely by a woman. 
She has the happy faculty of being able to inculcate into her customers the faith 
which she has in the Delta lands. Ever since she moved to Clarksdale, she has 
been one of the strongest boosters for the community, and one of the most 
efficient workers for its development. Mrs. Roseboom is a stockholder in the 
Planters Bank, in the Valley Dry Goods Company, in the Friedman-Shultz 
Shoe Company, and the Coahoma County Country Club. She is a member of the 
Presbyterian Church, of the Country Club, of the Southern Alluvial Land Asso- 
ciation, the Chamber of Commerce and the Moon Lake Club. 



578 





COCt^yiy 






fycJ^U ~//ay& $L^Ls 



Jflrs;. jffl. $. Mlltn 



|RS. MATILDA HAUPT MILLEN, widow of the late James 
Knox Millen, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the leading busi- 
^ /■ Wl ness wonien °^ tms section of the country, with a large plan- 
J_Y II W/p tation in Mississippi, comes from one of the oldest families 
in Memphis. Many years ago her grandfather, D. Burchhalter, 
moved here from Switzerland and for a long time operated, 
up in the northern part of Chelsea, a large tannery, and was one of the leading 
business men of the city. The family was of the old Swiss-John Calvin faith 
in religion and its members were pioneer communicants in the "Old Brick," 
now Third Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Millen was born in Shreveport, Louis- 
iana, June 3, 1876, the daughter of Jacob and Matilda (Burchhalter) Haupt. 
The family was on a visit there at that time, but soon returned to Memphis, 
where Mrs. Millen grew up, attending the public schools and later completing 
her education in the Clara Conway Institute. She and Mr. Millen, who was a 
native of Tipton County, Tennessee, were married January 29, 1896. For 
many years he was connected with the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad 
Company, and was one of the most widely known and popular men connected 
with that system, especially between Clarksdale and Jackson, Mississippi. He 
realized long ago that there was a wonderful future for the fertile lands of 
the Mississippi Delta, and, in 1903, he bought a tract of some three thousand 
acres on the left bank of Sunflower River, just below the Mississippi State farm 
and where Lombardy now is. It is recognized as one of the finest pieces of 
land in the entire Delta. All of it is cleared and in the highest state of cultiva- 
tion. When Mr. Millen died, June 29, 1916, Mrs. Millen took active charge of 
the management of the plantation in which she has been highly successful. She 
has erected at Lombardy a palatial country home, probably the finest on any 
plantation in the Mississippi Delta, dividing her time between there and her 
Memphis residence on Pasadena Place. She has recently bought a tract of land 
almost adjoining the city of Clarksdale. She has also bought recently some 
fifty-five hundred acres of land in Crittenden and St. Francis counties, Arkansas, 
which she is developing rapidly. During the entire movement of troops through 
Memphis in the World War, Mrs. Millen gave two days each week to the can- 
teen service of the Red Cross, feeding thousands of soldiers. She is interested 
in the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company, Clarksdale Savings Bank, Mississippi 
Valley Dry Goods Company, Friedman-Shultz Shoe Company, Clarksdale Realty 
Company, Delta Oil Company and Planters Manufacturing Company of Clarks- 
dale ; and a member of the Second Presbyterian Church, Memphis County Club, 
Nineteenth Century Club and board of managers of the Leath Orphanage & 
Porter Home of Memphis. Her children are Gilmore, James K., Matilda, now 
Mrs. Rezneat Darnell, Frances and Louis. 



583 



». P. JltaUorp 




[HE late Captain William Barton Mallory was surpassed for 
half a century by no man in his leadership in all movements 
for the commercial, civic and political progress of Memphis, 
Tennessee. He was born in Hanover County, Virginia, August 
11, 1835, the son of William Cole and Sarah Mallory, his 
family having been conspicuous for its virility, virtue and utility 
from the earliest days of the State. He died in Memphis, June 8, 1919. His 
palatial home where for years he kept open house was where the Methodist 
Hospital now stands. He received his early education in the common schools 
of his community and finished his education near Washington. His first work 
was as an accountant for the road then building and now the Chesapeake & 
Ohio Railroad. At the age of twenty-one years he moved to Charlottesville, 
Virginia, and shortly thereafter was elected captain of the Monticello Guards, 
a militia company which was as old as the country and which had been in all of 
the wars since the Revolution. It was called into active service during the 
John Brown raids and Captain Mallory at the head of it stood guard at Brown's 
execution. Although Virginia did not secede until April 16, 1861, Captain 
Mallory started to the front with his command on April 8 and reported for duty 
at Harper's Ferry. When the Nineteenth Virginia Regiment of Infantry, 
C. S. A., was organized, the Monticello Guards became the senior company, 
and as its commander, Captain Mallory served until Appomattox, a gallant and 
useful officer. Soon after the surrender he came to Tennessee, locating first at 
Clarksville and shortly afterwards coming to Memphis. After having farmed 
for a time he entered the brick manufacturing business. Later he acquired an 
interest in the Hernando Insurance Company. Then Captain Mallory went into 
the line in which most of his life in Memphis was spent and in which he became 
such an outstanding success — the wholesale grocery and cotton factoring busi- 
ness. The firm of Harris, Mallory & Company was formed with him as 
the junior member. In 1879 he and Mr. W. J. Crawford joined in the organi- 
zation of the firm of Mallory, Crawford & Company which for twenty years 
was one of the strongest grocery and cotton firms in the South. In 1899, Mr. 
Crawford withdrew and the firm became W. B. Mallory & Sons Company, of 
Which Captain Mallory was the head until his death. Captain Mallory and a 
few associates organized the Commercial Publishing Company in 1889 and 
launched a paper out of which The Commercial Appeal has grown. He was the 
company's only vice-president. He was married first to Miss Martha Harris of 
Christian County, Kentucky, their children being: Mrs. R. W. Harris, Mrs. J. 
T. Harahan, B. L., and J. H. Mallory. His second wife was Miss Sophia 
Newell of Clarksville, Tennessee. Their children are: Mrs. Hart, Mrs. I. B. 
Hudson, Mrs. K. G. Duffield, W. W., and A. H. Mallory. 



584 



/ 





'H^£fir7r-i£s6~Ttx>^ 



3 . 4W. #oobbar 




2-^IXTY years head of a business which he founded, save for 

Sfour years when he followed the forlorn hope of the Confed- 
7a|A eracy, building that business to $1,000,000 per year with its 
yfy) mudsills laid upon honesty, integrity and fair dealings, yet 
finding time to be active in every movement for the upbuild- 
ing of his community, commercially, industrially and finan- 
cially; to mingle with his fellowman socially, and to serve his Maker with 
his time and money — such was the career of Mr. James Monroe Goodbar, of 
Memphis, Tennessee. Born in Overton County, Tennessee, May 29, 1839, 
the son of William P. and Jane McKinney Goodbar, he was educated at 
Sparta. He clerked in Nashville for a year and concluded that Memphis 
afforded greater opportunities than Nashville. Coming to Memphis in 1860 
with Colonel Thomas L. and John S. Bransford, Mr. Goodbar commenced 
the wholesale shoe business under the name of Bransford, Goodbar & Com- 
pany. Scarcely was the business organized when the Stars and Bars were 
unfurled and Mr. Goodbar followed that flag until it went to its final rest. 
Returning to Memphis, he organized the firm of Goodbar & Gilliland, which 
continued in the wholesale shoe business until 1876, when it was succeeded by 
the present firm of Goodbar & Company, than which there is none more solid 
nor substantial. Famine, pestilence and war had not shaken his abiding faith 
in the city which would be and has become the center of its magnificent territory. 
Following the terrible times of 78 and 79, when so many firms left here for 
other locations, Mr. Goodbar remained and took a man's share in recouping 
the lost fortunes of the community. He had no taste nor time for office, but 
when Memphis was compelled to surrender its charter and virtually got into 
the hands of receivers to escape an unbearable burden of debt, Mr. Goodbar 
accepted appointment upon the Board of Public Works, where his sound judg- 
ment, faithful performance of all duties and sterling honesty were of ines- 
timable value to the community. He was married in 1867 to Miss Mary E. 
Morgan of Hernando, Miss. They had three children, William M., a planter 
in Arkansas ; J. Bright, associated with his father in business, and Miss Mamie 
O., now Mrs. Charles P. O'Fallon of St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Goodbar lived 
a delightful life in his home, No. 1484 Central Avenue, the most magnificent 
in this section when it was built and still, in the grandeur of its stone lines and 
the state of its surroundings, surpassed by few. A member of the City Club, the 
Menasha Outing Club, and for years an elder of the Second Presbyterian Church, 
full of years, piety and means, Mr. Goodbar might well have said on his death- 
bed, June 13, 1920, with the saint of old, "For mine eyes have seen Thy glory 
and the glory of Thy handiwork, and now, Lord, letest Thou Thy servant depart 
in peace." 



589 



0. a. Jiouck 



MEMPHIS lost, in the death of Oliver Kershner Houck, on May 

M. 30, 1920, him who by universal acclaim was held as her first 
Jay citizen, whose benefactions measured both by the efficiency of 
)§e) the time which he gave, the comparative volume of his financial 
donations and the range which they covered, surpassed those 
of any other Memphian of his generation. He gave to the 
point of prodigality within his means. He sought nothing for himself. He 
knew more men in Memphis than did any other man and loved them all. If 
any man had aught less than a kind feeling for "O. K.," as he was universally 
known, he dared not express it from fear of convicting himself of not being 
right. His deathbed profession of religion contained no element of fear of 
an unpleasant hereafter as its inspiration, but in the clear logic of the Apostle 
of Tarsus and the stately diction of the man of Uz, and with the sublime 
faith of both Paul and Job, had as its motif a sincere sorrow that on this earth 
he had been deprived of the joy of the companionship of Jesus the Anointed 
which he knew would be his delight in the endless hereafter. In sacred liter- 
ature it will rank for time next to the Holy Writ, and but for the severe threat 
in the final portion of the Book of Revelation, it probably would be incorporated 
therein. At thirteen years of age Mr. Houck quit school and went to work. 
An amazing degree of energy, a marvelous capacity both for details and for 
grasping the main point, one hundred per cent efficiency, absolute honesty, ster- 
ling integrity, the most loving and lovable of dispositions, ever seeing the humor 
of any situation, bore him steadily to the fore in the business world and as a 
factor for the best of his community. He was an honorary member of the 
Chamber of Commerce, and a life member of Saint Elmo Commandery No. 15, 
Knights Templar, and a thirty-second degree K. C. C. H. He had filled the 
highest office in practically every stage of Masonry. He was a member of nearly 
all of the local secret societies, the main social clubs and head of three humor- 
ous organizations. In 1910 he was chairman of the Musketeers Committee of 
the Business Men's Club, now Chamber of Commerce, which raised $50,000 to 
advertise Memphis, and almost annually after that head of the principal organ- 
izations for raising funds for all public purposes, and at the time of his death 
was chairman of the committee which sent the membership of the Chamber 
of Commerce far beyond all expectations. His last benefaction was a gift on 
his dying bed to the Hospital for Crippled Children. O. K. Houck was born 
February 25, 1862, in Decatur, Illinois, the son of John Cassell and Rebecca 
(Kershner) Houck. The family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1873, and 
he came to Memphis and on October 17, 1883, opened the store which now is 
the O. K. Houck Piano Company and which he made the leading music estab- 
lishment in the Mid-South. Mr. Houck was never married. 



590 




aZJ% . 



©r. p. <&. penning 




HE late Doctor Bennett Greaves Henning, a leader in Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, for more than a third of a century not only 
in the practice of his profession of medicine, but also in 
the social, religions, economic and political life of the com- 
munity, was born October 16, 1849, in the small settlement 
of Durhamville, Lauderdale County, Tennessee, the son of 
Doctor David Meriwether and Anna (Greaves) Henning. The father was the 
son of a Methodist minister, a man of culture, refinement and, before the Civil 
War, wealthy in land and slaves. A Whig, he naturally opposed secession, but 
when the die had been cast he crossed the Rubicon with his people and was 
faithful to the Confederacy to the end. The son grew up on his father's plan- 
tation and received his education under Judge James Byars in Covington, Ten- 
nessee, who had the rare faculty of grounding his pupils thoroughly in the rudi- 
ments and inspiring them with a desire to continue learning after leaving school. 
The family's slaves and consequent opportunity to live the easy life of the ante- 
bellum planter having been swept away by the Civil War, the lad chose medi- 
cine as his profession in emulation of his father and went to Jefferson Medical 
College in Philadelphia, where all of the old good doctors of this section of the 
country were educated. Thence he went to Bellevue in New York City, then 
the largest medical school in the United States, where he was graduated in 1870, 
winning an internship in Bellevue Hospital, but having to wait several months 
until attaining his majority before he could be given his diploma. He spent 
some months in the office of Dr. Austin Flynt, Senior, in New York, and through 
his influence was appointed to a position in the Jersey City Hospital, but soon 
resigned that and came to Memphis to practice. Here the late Doctor D. D. 
Saunders appointed him prosecutor of anatomy in the old Medical College located 
at Front and Exchange Streets, also being made attending physician to the dis- 
pensary maintained by the college, out of which finally grew the city board 
of health. About that time the late Doctor Herber Jones moved to Memphis 
and the two young doctors formed a partnership. In 1872 Doctor Henning had 
Doctor Jones named as his successor in the dispensary and went to Europe, 
where he pursued his studies. He returned to Memphis, passed through the 
1873 yellow fever epidemic, reported the first cases in 1878 and 1879 for which 
he was burned in effigy and publicly insulted, but when the ensuing epidemics 
justified his diagnosis, he quickly gained probably the largest genera! practice 
that any man in Memphis ever had enjoyed and retained it until he voluntarily 
retired. He was a fire and police commissioner from 1904 to 1910. He was 
married October 15, 1874, to Miss Cornelia Frayser. Their children are Doctor 
David Max Henning, Mrs. L. D. Fort and Mrs. B. G. Covington. He died 
in April, 1918. 



595 



Jfrebericfc #rgtll 




]N the death of Frederick Orgill on October 31, 1919, Memphis 
lost one of its most successful, beloved and delightful citizens. 
Mr. Orgill was born in Memphis, Tennessee, November 2, 
1859, the son of Edmund and Lucy (Willins) Orgill. His 
father had come from England and established the firm of 
Orgill Brothers & Co. in 1847. At the age of fourteen years 
the father took the son back to England for his education, and he attended 
Trent College at Burton-on-Trent. Later he returned to the United States and 
attended a normal business college in Brooklyn, New York. At twenty-one years 
of age he entered the mercantile world as an employe of the Weibusch & Hilger 
Hardware Company in New York City, where he remained for two years, when 
he returned to Memphis and went into the firm of Orgill Brothers & Co., where 
he remained the remainder of his life. In 1898 the firm was incorporated and 
he was elected the vice-president, his father being the president. As the ha,nd 
of time rested more heavily on the shoulders of the father, the affairs of the 
company were assumed by the son until 1905, when the father died. Mr. Fred- 
erick Orgill was chosen to succeed him. He was the active head of the business 
from then until his death, expanding its scope greatly and adding to the glory 
of the name of Orgill, which has stood for nearly three quarters of a century 
for all that is good in the mercantile line. He carried the business each year 
higher and higher, but it was done by brains and not by the lifeblood of the 
employes, as was shown at the time of his death by the sincere expressions of 
all of them, not only the office force, but even the truckmen. Their floral trib- 
utes were not only among the most beautiful, but carried with them the most 
touching sentiments of the mass that were received. But Mr. Orgill did not 
devote all of his time to his business. He found time whenever there was any- 
thing to be done for the upbuilding of the city to give the movement both his 
time and good judgment. He was the first president of the Tri-State Fair 
Association, which from that small start has grown into the magnificent institu- 
tion of today. He was a life-long member of Calvary Episcopal Church, long 
a vestryman and during the latter part of his life chairman of its finance com- 
mittee. He was a Mason, a Shriner, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, 
the Country Club and the Tennessee Club, of which he served a term as presi- 
dent. He was vice-president of the Hernando Insurance Company, was for a 
long time the active vice-president of the old State National Bank and at the 
time of his death a director in the Central-State National Bank. He was presi- 
dent of the Southern Hardware Jobbers Association in 1916 and 1917. He and 
Miss Annie Dennington were married December 27, 1883. Their children are 
Frederick Dennington, Arthur Reginald and Kenneth Willins Orgill. 



596 





r 



3 . i5t. Jf alls; 





I HE late James Napoleon Falls, for seventy-five years a citizen 

TyJ of Memphis, Tennessee, for four years a soldier in as good 
ml a company as the Confederacy boasted of, and for half a cen- 
WS turv a leader throughout the Mid-South in business, manufac- 
turing, financial, social and religious circles, was a native of 
Macon, Fayette County, Tennessee, where he was born Feb- 
ruary 20, 1841, the son of Gilbreath and Frances (Manees) Falls. Mr. Falls' 
grandfather migrated from Iredell County, North Carolina, to Athens, Alabama, 
During his stay there. Gilbreath Falls, father of James Falls, was born. From 
there they moved to Somerville, Tennessee. Mr. Falls' grandfather was one 
of the first of the race of hardy aristocrats who moved from across the moun- 
tains and created that wonderful community from La Grange, up to old Bel- 
mont, and across to Bolivar. The American line of the family was established 
by Charles Falls, who came from England in 1635. Mr. Falls' great-great- 
grandfather fell on a Revolutionary battlefield, whereupon his fourteen-year-old 
son, with his father's sword, slew a Tory in the act of robbing the body. Mr. 
Falls' father came to Memphis in 1845, and under the name of G. Falls & 
Company established the pioneer cotton-buying and exporting firm. The son 
was educated privately in Memphis, then at McLemoresville, Tennessee, and 
finished his course at Antioch College, Yellow Sulphur Springs, Ohio. Return- 
ing home about the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted promptly in the Bluff 
City Grays, later Company "B" of the 115th Regiment, Tennessee, and still 
later mounted under Gen. Forrest. He fought from Belmont to Gainesville, 
except for a short time after the battle of Murfreesboro, where he surrendered 
to be with a mortally wounded brother, but escaped immediately after his 
brother's death. He was wounded at Shiloh. Returning to Memphis in 1865, 
he joined his father's firm, then Falls & Cash. He was a pioneer in the cotton 
seed oil industry, first building a mill in 1873 at Friar Point, Mississippi, later 
the Valley Oil Mill in Memphis, and last the Dixie Oil Mill in Little Rock, 
Arkansas. The Merchants Cotton Press & Storage Company was then the 
largest institution in Memphis. Mr. Falls was president of that concern for 
twenty years. He had the distinction of being the first man to establish here a 
factory for the manufacture of ice — the People's Ice Company, and in that con- 
nection sinking the first artesian well in Memphis, where the Linden Station 
is now located, and, as president of the Chickasaw Building Company, erected 
the Falls Building, the largest exclusive cotton office building in the world. Mr. 
Falls and Miss Clara Dunn, daughter of Dr. Lawson Biscoe Dunn and Malinda 
Lewis Dunn, were married at Walnut Bend, Arkansas, November 8, 1871. Their 
children are Clara Frances, now Mrs. J. Alexander Austin ; Lawson Dunn ; 
Minnie Lee, now Mrs. Rayburn Dunscomb : John William II and Melinda Eliz- 
abeth, now Mrs. William Poston Maury. Mr. Falls died May 15, 1919. 



601 



Jameg Hee 




HE late James Lee, known for nearly half a century in 

T, Memphis, Tennessee, as Captain James Lee, Jr., during the 
w£ major portion of that time easily one of the leaders in every 
^ movement for the material and moral development of Memphis, 
a natural leader of men by the force of his intellect and 
the precision of his statements, efficient to the highest degree 
and eminently successful in all of his undertakings, both public and private, 
was born March 8, 1832, in Stewart County, Tennessee, where his father, 
James Lee, Sr., had migrated at an early date from Maryland and become a 
pioneer iron magnate. The senior James Lee also operated a line of steam- 
boats between the upper Cumberland River and New Orleans and in the early 
days made Memphis the headquarters for his line of steamers. The younger 
James Lee was one of the best educated men of his day in Memphis. He 
received his education in the University of Nashville and then finished at 
Princeton University, where he received his bachelor of arts degree in 1853, 
following this with the full law course at the same institution. Returning 
home he was a successful practitioner, both at Dover and Clarksville, Tennes- 
see, until 1860, when he moved to Memphis, forming a partnership first with 
General James R. Chalmers, and later with Captain H. C. Warinner. Captain 
Lee enlarged at the Memphis bar the success that he had previously made and 
rapidly became recognized as one of its leaders at a time when the local bar 
was at its zenith. His firm was without a peer in the matter of marine law, 
and the equal of any in all branches of civil law. In the meanwhile Captain 
Lee's father had laid the foundation for a magnificent river business, but the 
hand of time was resting heavily upon him and Captain Lee decided to abandon 
the law in 1877 and greatly to the regret of his fellow members of the bar 
and of the firm's large clientele, he, at the age when most men have been 
proven in the business world, quit his profession and took charge of the Lee 
Line Steamers. He put into the steamboat business the same acumen, energy 
and integrity that he had in his profession of law. From the first he competed 
successfully with the Great Anchor Line and eventually took from it the 
prestige in the central river business. During the low ebb of the tide in the 
affairs of Memphis, he bought heavily of real estate, his faith giving courage 
to others. He never sought public office, but accepted appointment in 1883 
from the governor as a member of the fire and police commission of which he 
was vice-president. Captain Lee and Miss Rowena Bayliss were married 
November 18, 1858, in Dover, Tennessee. Their children were: Miss Rosa, 
Mrs. Sallie Lee Phillips, Robert E., James III, Bayliss G., Miss Georgia, now 
Mrs. Robert A. Parker, George Peters, Miss Ora Belle, Shelby Rees, and Miss 
Rowena, now Mrs. Walter C. Teagle. He died February 12, 1905. 



b02 





£^2^2^<^c? 




£%Uao c7z^r1\^ 



Cfjarlesi &cott 




(HE late Charles Scott, Rosedale, Mississippi, was surpassed 
by no man if equalled by any as a developer of the Missis- 
sippi Delta, for a third of a century was one of the most 
conspicuous, useful, successful and delightful men in Missis- 
sippi, and dying left a name unsullied by any act or word 
unworthy of a gentleman. Denied opportunity for any scholas- 
tic education after fourteen years of age, he became by private study one of 
the most scholarly men in his State and one of its greatest lawyers ; rushing 
as a mere slip of a lad at the age of fifteen years under General Daniel W. Adams 
to the relief of Vicksburg, he became an aide on his staff ; followed the irresistible 
attraction which General Forrest had for men of courage, daring and high 
spirit ; surrendered with him at Gainesville, Alabama, a veteran of as hard cam- 
paigns as the world has ever seen three and a half years before he was old 
enough to exercise the right of suffrage ; and disfranchised by federal recon- 
struction laws, he led the forces in his county of Bolivar, where more than 
ninety per cent of the population was negro, in the overthrow of carpet-bag 
rule and restoration of native Anglo-Saxon supremacy. The fortunes of the 
family wrecked by the collapse of the Confederacy, he taught school and 
served as night clerk in a Vicksburg hotel while completing his own educa- 
tion and reading law, and became the largest cotton planter in the world and 
the head of the bar, having been admitted to the practice by special act prior 
to having attained his majority. At the end of a series of years as lean for 
the Mississippi Delta as those which Joseph prophesied to Pharaoh of old for 
the Delta of the Nile, Mr. Scott found himself in such financial straits that he 
called together his creditors to make an assignment of all of his assets for their 
benefit. They unanimously declined to accept an assignment, voicing their 
faith in his integrity and capacity with an offer to finance him and an expres- 
sion that he better than any one else could work the problem out. He paid 
dollar for dollar with interest, including depositors of the bank of which he 
had been president, developing from the residue an estate which at the time of 
his death was one of the handsomest in the Delta. He fought the last duel in 
Mississippi under the code due to political bitterness. The success of the 
Delta was his joy ; its reverses, his sorrow ; his faith in it like unto that of 
Job, and his great life work was in securing federal aid for levee work. When 
the flood of 1897 was at its height from many crevasses he gave a "High 
Water Luncheon" on the second floor of his palatial home while water raged 
below, not as Nero fiddled while Rome burned but as notice to the world that 
Delta courage was unshaken. Mr. Scott was born in Jackson, Mississippi, 
November 7, 1847, the son of Charles and Elizabeth M. (Bullus) Scott and 
died October 16, 1916. 



607 



f. 4WL Allien 




i HE late John Mills Allen, Tupelo, Mississippi, soldier, lawyer, 
statesman, banker, manufacturer, business man and planter, 
unsurpassed in the Mid-South in his affection for his fellow- 
men and their love for him, a humorist whose presence was 
enjoyed by all, and a sage whose counsel was sought and 
judgment valued in any serious proceeding, was born July 8, 
1846, near the town of Baldwyn, some twenty miles north of Tupelo, the 
son of David Mullins and Sally Ann (Spencer) Allen. His ancestors on 
both sides were prominent in colonial and early statehood days in Henry 
County, Virginia, for their refinement, culture and leadership. His father, 
mother and three children drove in a carriage from Virginia to Tishomingo 
County, Mississippi, about 1840, bringing their effects and slaves in wagons. 
His father was an old line Whig and as such opposed secession, but when the 
line was drawn, he promptly got on the Mississippi side of it and gave six 
sons to the Confederate service, one even younger than John. At the age of 
fifteen years, John went into the Federal lines around Corinth and got valuable 
information for the Confederates. Later he joined his older brothers under 
General Lee and was at the second battle of Manassas and at Antietam. 
Returning to Mississippi, he joined a company under Doctor J. B. Gambrell 
and spent the last year of the war under General Forrest, being especially 
valuable as a scout and receiving a slight wound. His father had been wealthy 
prior to the war in slaves, land and other property, but the conflict wrecked 
his finances and Mr. Allen, upon his return, went to work on the farm. 
Later his brother-in-law. Colonel Jephtha Robins, sent him to Cumberland 
University, Lebanon, Tennessee, and later to the University of Mississippi, 
where he was graduated in 1870. He moved to Tupelo and became the junior 
member of the law firm of Robins & Allen. Colonel Robins retired, his son, 
Mr. J. Q. Robins entered the firm and it remained Allen & Robins until 
Mr. Allen retired from practice in 1906. In 1875 he was elected prosecuting 
attorney for his judicial district and for sixteen years following 1884, he 
served in the lower house of the National Congress, the intimate personal 
friend and bitter political enemy of the leading Republicans, especially Presi- 
dent McKinley and Speaker Thomas B. Reed, the former of whom appointed 
him a commissioner for the St. Louis World's Fair. He was a charter mem- 
ber of the American Bar Association and a regular attendent upon its meetings, 
as well as those of the State Bar Association, the Confederate re-unions and 
the Democratic national conventions since 1872. Mr. Allen and Miss Georgia 
Taylor were married December 24, 1872. She still mourns his death, which 
occurred October 30, 1917. Their two surviving children are Miss Annie 
Belle, wife of Mr. S. J. High and Miss Georgia May, widow of Mr. R. A. Weaver. 



608 




jLrtt^^ (Uju^_ 



OTL ft. $ates 




N THE death of William Horatio Bates in Memphis, Tennessee, 
November 26, 1918, the city lost one of its oldest, most useful 
and most highly respected citizens. Mr. Bates was born Octo- 
ber 24, 1841, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, the son of Daniel and 
Sarah (Lavender) Bates. He received his early education 
under Professor Howe at Mount Pleasant, and later attended 
the public schools at Fort Madison, Iowa. His father before him was in the 
printing and newspaper business and Mr. Bates, at an early age, went into his 
office. It was there that he learned the cases and laid the foundation upon which 
he later builded until he became, long before his death, one of the best master 
printers in the United States. He came to Memphis in 1863, and after having 
worked for a time at his trade, he became foreman of the composing room of 
the old Argus and later of the Bulletin. In the meantime The Appeal, which 
had fled the city upon its capitulation to the Union Army, had returned with 
the straggling Confederates, and Mr. Bates became its foreman. For a time 
he also was head of the composing room of the old Avalanche. In 1869 he 
became superintendent of the printing and stationery department of the Mem- 
phis & Charleston Railroad, where he remained until 1876, when he became the 
junior member of the printing firm of S. C. Toof & Company, with which 
firm he spent the remainder of his life, becoming its head at the death of 
Mr. Toof. The firm soon took and steadily maintained the lead in its line in 
the Mid-South, and in some branches of its art achieved not only a national, 
but also international reputation. It was in this firm that Mr. Bates was best 
known. He had no taste for office-seeking or office-holding, but in 1878, when 
Memphis was in sore need of good men at the head of her affairs, he was pre- 
vailed upon to become one of the members of the city council, and again, after 
the city had acquired the Artesian Water Company and the sentiment was strong 
for taking it out of politics and operating it solely for the good of the people, 
he accepted appointment, in 1903, as a member of the commission and was 
elected its chairman. In later years he was often urged by elements which could 
have elected him to become a candidate for mayor, but steadfastly declined. 
He, for many years, was a staunch member of the congregation of the Linden 
Avenue Christian Church, and a member of DeSoto Masonic Lodge. His recre- 
ations were with the gun and rod, and for many years he was the secretary of 
the Wapanocca Outing Club, where he enjoyed the duck marshes and his friends 
enjoyed the fruits of his marksmanship. He also was a member of the Hatchie 
Coon Fishing Club. Mr. Bates and Miss Mary Ida Borcherdt were married 
October 13, 1871, and they were most devoted companions for nearly fifty years 
in their handsome home on Linden Avenue, where she still mourns him. 



613 



&. <§. Jflorroto 




N THE death at Battle Creek, Michigan, on the morning of 
Thursday, May 6, 1920, of Robertson George Morrow, Memphis 
lost one of her most useful, successful and beloved citizens, 
a man of broad vision and possessing the ability to make his 
visions realities. Mr. Morrow was born in Paducah, Ken- 
tucky, December 10, 1861, the son of George and Sallie 
(Robertson) Morrow. After having attended the Paducah schools, he entered 
the business world as a bookkeeper for Jos. L. Friedman & Company in 1880. 
Three years later he entered in Paducah the furniture business, the line in 
which later he was to achieve one of the greatest successes in the United States. 
He remained in that business until 1892, when he came to Memphis and organized 
the Memphis Furniture Manufacturing Company. He was the first president 
of the company and held that office until the time of his death, and he was the 
active head of the organization from its formation until his health began to 
fail a few months prior to his death. From the day that the plant began opera- 
tions, he proved himself a master manufacturer and later in the disposal of the 
product of the plant equally as efficient as a merchant. His ability, high degree of 
efficiency and sterling honesty rapidly sent the concern to the front, and he 
quickly became one of the leading citizens of Memphis. By the time that the 
Memphis Furniture Manufacturing Company had become master of its imme- 
diate field, Mr. Morrow began to expand into other southern territories. He 
became in turn the head of the New Orleans Furniture Manufacturing Company, 
the Little Rock Furniture Manufacturing Company, the Vicksburg Furniture 
Manufacturing Company and the Oklahoma Furniture Manufacturing Company, 
in all of which the success of the parent concern in Memphis was duplicated, 
until Mr. Morrow, long prior to his death was the active head of the largest 
furniture manufacturing organization in the entire world. He had moved the 
manufacture of furniture out of southern timber for southern use from Michigan 
to the South. For years he was equally as prominent in the social life and 
charitable work of the city as he was in the business phases. He was a member 
of the Tennessee and the Memphis Country clubs, Chamber of Commerce, and 
president of the Associated Charities. Mr. Morrow was a man of most attrac- 
tive personality and manner, cosmopolitan from wide travel all over the United 
States and portions of South America, devoted to and adored by his friends, of 
strong convictions, ever ready to express them when occasion demanded it 
and always willing to back them. He had no personal taste for politics but was 
active when better administration of public affairs was involved. He and 
Miss Kate Bond, daughter of Mrs. Jerome Hill of Bolivar, Tennessee, were 
married in St. Louis, Missouri, November 26, 1895. Their children are 
Robert G., Jr., Lewis and Irene. 



614 



^ 




^^\^r~)^r^ 



<z> 



-\ 




4? ^^li^y^ 



C. €. Mrigfjt 




| HE late Charles Edward Wright, Greenwood, Mississippi, to 
whom the Mississippi Delta owes that great boon — artesian 
water — has the rare distinction of having had his worth to the 
community recognized during his lifetime by the erection in the 
high school grounds of Greenwood of a massive granite boulder 
into which is carved a drinking fountain and upon which is 
placed a bronze tablet bearing witness that in May, 1895, at a depth of nine hun- 
dred and one feet, he brought in the first overflowing well of water in the Missis- 
sippi Delta. The sanitarians of a generation have not done as much for the 
health and therefore the possible progress of that section. While that possibly 
was the most conspicuous of his useful acts, for thirty years he was one of the 
most active men in the Mississippi Delta for its material development, finding 
time both to build up and successfully operate a tremendous business for himself 
and also to give a great deal of his time and ability to the public. Greenwood 
showed her appreciation of the man by stopping every wheel of industry and 
every line of activity during the hour of his funeral. Mr. Wright was born 
in Macomb, McDonaugh, County, Illinois, September 11, 1862, the son of Fran- 
cis L. and Pamelia (Pace) Wright. He worked for a time as a lad on the farm 
and then for the government on steamboats removing snags from the Mississippi 
River and its tributaries. It was while in work that he went to Greenwood in 
the winter of 1889. He visualized its future and although having but small means, 
decided at once to cast his lot with that community. He and his brother, 
Mr. Brantley, started business there in a small bottling plant. He bought 
Mr. Brantley's interest, and later established a general transfer business. He 
and Mr. T. Staige Marye formed the firm of Marye & Wright and added an 
ice factory to the bottling plant. In 1894 the firm was given the municipal light- 
ing contract. Three years later he installed the city water works system, includ- 
ing fire plugs. In 1901 he contracted with the city for its light, water and sewer 
systems, completed them the following year and in 1903 transferred them to the 
city. By that time his private affairs were of such magnitude as to need all of 
his time, but he consented to accept the position of city commissioner to operate 
these systems. He held that position until his death and also since 1919 had 
been a valuable member of the county board of supervisors. He sought no public 
office, but accepted those positions as a public duty. Mr. Wright also was presi- 
dent of the First National Bank from 1908 until his death. His main firm was 
the C. E. Wright Ice & Coal Company, including those lines in connection with 
the manufacture of ice cream and bottling soft drinks. He was accidentally 
killed by a railroad engine in Greenwood, September 23, 1920, leaving to mourn 
him his widow, formerly Miss Daisy Price, whom he married May 6, 1896, and 
a son, C. E., Jr. 



619 



CoL m. JH. ftus&ell 




[OR more than half a century no man stood more strongly for 
all material development, the highest code of honor and the 
most refined standard of gentility in Coahoma County, Mis- 
sissippi, than did the late Colonel David Moor Russell of 
Jonestown, and behind all of these high ideals of the man 
there was that indescribable something which intuitively made 
other men desire to follow his example. The son of Davis Moor and Mary 
(Flint) Russell, he was born April 19, 1832, at Gainesville, Alabama. Edu- 
cated at Milton Military Academy, he entered Yale, but showed his high spirit 
by being one of the forty from the South who resigned when President Hadley 
stated that Southerners represented "blood money." Rejected on account of his 
lungs from active service in the Confederacy, he became commissioner for the 
Confederacy in purchases from England, had innumerable narrow escapes from 
the blockades, and was in the House of Commons the night that Gladstone made 
his speech favoring the Confederacy. Returning, Colonel Russell helped plan 
the Confederate raid on the banks at St. Albans, which caused the greatest 
thrill that rock-ribbed Vermont ever had. Just after the close of the Civil War, 
Colonel Russell took the negroes who had been his slaves and who had no 
idea of quitting him, to Coahoma County, Mississippi, and bought one hundred 
and twenty acres of land unsurpassed anywhere for fertility. Living in a double 
log house, he began clearing the land for the plow, and named the place Mata- 
gorda. He developed the plantation to nearly five thousand acres, and there is 
no better estate of the size in the Mid-South, still cultivated by the negroes 
whom he brought from Alabama and their descendants. Colonel Russell had no 
taste for partisan politics, but when he went to vote on the morning of the 
day that R. E. Bobo and R. N. Harris redeemed Coahoma County from Radical 
rule, he found his name on the only ticket for legislator. The last Radical 
candidate had left the county the night previously. For years he gave his time 
to the Upper Yazoo Levee Board, long its president, and during his administra- 
tion of that most important office the greatest strides were made for the pro- 
tection of the country and without the slightest suspicion of any irregularity of 
even favoritism. Colonel Russell was married first in May, 1861, to Miss Mary 
Bliss of which union there was no issue. He and Miss Margaret T. McManus 
of Brookline, Massachusetts, were married February 28, 1911, and his noble 
life came to a close at her Brookline home August 4, 1918. The remains were 
buried in his boyhood home, where the schools all closed for the pupils to honor 
his memory by attending the ceremony. Mrs. Russell and Capt. John B. Hood, 
named for his father of illustrious Confederate fame, were married Sept. 18, 
1919, and live at Matagorda. Colonel Russell had reared Capt. Hood after 
General Hood's death. 



620 




-^j^vS_^-^_zi£. 



ffi. C, Potoers; 




[HE late Duke Cayce Bowers was almost as much a pioneer in 

T,n, Memphis as were Overton, Jackson and Winchester and it is 
(joA doubtful if any other man has been of more real benefit to 
(^ the city than he was, although his active career occupied but 
nine years. When he came to Memphis almost every store in 
the residential sections of the city carried whisky and beer 
which were sold for cash and groceries which were sold for credit — a condition 
morally zero and economically below the freezing point for those who had 
thrift enough to pay their bills were held to the grindstone paying also 
the bill of the shiftless. The politicians had made most of the people believe 
that if liquors and groceries were separated, all would have to go to the center 
of the city to buy their necessities. Hence it was only to laugh on the morning 
of August 19, 1902, that Memphians read at the corner of Polk Avenue and 
McKinley Street the sign "Mr. Bowers' Store No. 1" and saw inside a $300 
stock of groceries, without liquors of any kind, without even tobacco, and this 
offered for cash only and without being delivered. The first day's gross receipts 
aggregated eight cents, but the people gradually learned that Mr. Bowers added 
a uniform profit of 14.2 per cent to the cost of each item, 10 per cent for the 
expense of doing business and the remainder for his profit. The average 
of his competitors was above 30 per cent. By the end of the first year he 
had done a business of $41,000, and the second year aggregated $99,205. The 
laugh of competitors turned to fear, then to war. Jobbers who sought his trade 
were boycotted. Manufacturers who marked their wares for retail prices carry- 
ing more than 14.2 per cent profit refused to sell to him. The issue became 
national. He won. Customers flocked to his store. Soon "Mr. Bowers' Store 
No. 2" made its appearance on Vance Avenue, and others followed in rapid 
succession. Mr. Bowers had shown himself superior to failure earlier in life. 
Now he showed himself equal to success and the business grew by leaps and 
bounds until 1911, when Mr. Bowers had established thirty-seven stores, all 
conducted along the lines of the first one and all successful. He advertised 
sales for cash only, but said nothing of the numberless recipients of his charity. 
Mr. Bowers was born in Mobile, Alabama, November 17, 1874, the son of Calvin 
T. and Ida (Cayce) Bowers. He lived for many years at Clinton and Colum- 
bus, Kentucky, failed in the grocery line in Columbus doing a credit business, 
worked as a newsboy for the Union News Company, labored for a stave mill 
at Columbus, succeeded in a cash store there and then came to Memphis. In 
1911 his health failed under the severe strain and he sold a half interest in his 
stores, spending the remainder of his life in charitable and philanthropic work. 
He and Miss Ethel Gibbs were married October 24, 1900. He died December 22, 
1917. 



625 



OT. $. ^toball 




JHE late Colonel William Howard Stovall, of Stovall, Missis- 
sippi, and for a long time a citizen of Memphis, Tennessee, 
was for many years a leading factor for all that was good in 
the public affairs of both communities. He was born in Colum- 
bia, Tennessee, February 20, 1834, and died April 5, 1916. He 
bore the name of his father. The maiden name of his mother 
was Martha Minter. After having attended the schools at Columbia, he went 
to school at Jackson, Tennessee, to Doctor James Holmes, and then took the law 
course at Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee. Just after graduating, 
he moved to Memphis and entered the practice of his profession. When the 
Civil War came on he went out with the first Memphis men in what they 
always claimed was the first regiment in the State to offer its services to the 
Confederacy, but when another organization finally was awarded the honor of 
being Number 1, they took the name of One Hundred and Fifty-fourth (Senior) 
Regiment. It was composed of the young men of high birth and high spirit of 
this section and was not surpassed in courage, valor, daring and devotion to 
the cause by any command in the entire Southern army. Entering the service 
as a lieutenant, he came out at the close of the war adjutant of the regiment. 
Colonel Stovall returned at once to Memphis, but an injury to his eyes forbade 
his resuming the practice of law. In 1866 he was married to Miss Louise Irene 
Fowler, daughter of Colonel J. W. Fowler, who owned land in Coahoma County, 
Mississippi, just below Friar Point, where Stovall now is located. Colonel 
Stovall went there and engaged in planting soon after his marriage, becoming 
one of the pioneers of Coahoma County and for the next half century a leading 
figure not only in the material and economic progress of the Upper Mississippi 
Delta, but also by the example of his high character, elegant manner, and sterling 
integrity equally a leader in the social and moral elevation of the community. 
His most conspicuous public service was in connection with the organization of 
the Upper Yazoo levee district and pushing that levee system until it has become 
the best on the Mississippi River. He was a leader in forming the district and 
was for years president of its commission. Colonel Stovall's first wife died in 
1875, leaving one son, John W., a polished gentleman and successful planter, 
who died in 1913, survived by his widow and daughter, Louise, who live at 
Stovall. On July 7, 1891, Colonel Stovall was married to Miss Roberta Lewis 
Franks of Texas, who survives him, living at Stovall on Belmont Plantation, 
which Colonel Stovall bought and developed. Their son Howard, named for 
his father and also living at Stovall, an ace in the Thirteenth Aero Squadron, 
U. S. A., was decorated by his government for valor in action in France. 



626 




^TV^/m^C 



gntfjonp Malsif) 




jEMPHIS suffered a severe loss when Anthony Walsh was taken 
from this earth, June 11, 1912. Mr. Walsh was born near 
Chicago April 1, 1856. The family moved to Memphis in 
1859, where his father died in 1861, leaving his widow little 
means but a great heritage in the two sons, Anthony and his 
elder brother, John T. The lads had to aid their mother in 
making her and their own support, and it must have been this community of their 
purpose in life from their earliest recollection that made them the most devoted 
of brothers. Throughout the entire life of the younger brother, they held in 
common all that it was possible for two men to hold. Their meager earnings 
as lads, their ample wealth in later years, their hopes and ambitions, their sor- 
rows and disappointments, their reversals and their successes, were all in com- 
mon. The mother and elder brother had been able to keep Anthony in the pub- 
lic schools in Memphis until he was thirteen years of age. Then it was neces- 
sary for him to do his bit and add his mite. He found a place at that young 
age in James Dalton's grocery store at Main street and Overton avenue, where 
a few years later he and his brother founded the firm of J. T. Walsh & Brother, 
which was the foundation of their fortunes. After a year at Dalton's he suc- 
ceeded his elder brother in the cigar stand at the old Worsham House, at the 
corner of Main street and Adams avenue, and ran that for three years after 
his brother had bought it in 1874 out of what was left of the family estate after 
the death of their mother from yellow fever in 1873. In 1877 the brothers 
had saved enough to form the firm of J. T. Walsh & Brother, later moving it 
to the corner of Main street and Commerce avenue, where it still stands, doing 
a tremendous business. From the first it prospered and long has been the cen- 
ter of the activities of the northern portion of the city, as well as the meeting 
place for the northern portion of this and the southern portion of Tipon County. 
In 1904 he and his brother saw the need of a bank in the northern part of the 
city and organized the North Memphis Savings Bank. The only trouble that 
they had in securing the $50,000 capital stock with which the bank opened was 
to prevent a few people from taking all of it. The bank opened April 4, 1904, 
with Mr. Walsh as president and deposits at the close of that year of $250,000. 
Its growth even from the start was beyond the fondest dreams of the promoters 
and has continued to date under the presidency of John T. Walsh, who suc- 
ceeded his brother. Now the capital is $250,000 and deposits aggregate nearly 
six million. Although a strong factor in politics, Mr. Walsh sought no office 
for himself, but in 1881 was elected a member of the City Board of Education, 
He played the game because he liked to help his friends. He and Miss Annie 
Walsh were married in 1881. They had no child. 



631 



3T. a. Gfotones; 




7JN the death of James Armstead Townes, April 12, 1914, the 
upper Mississippi Delta lost one of its most useful, successful 
and honored pioneers. Mr. Townes was born in Grenada 
County, Mississippi near the city of Grenada, March 4, 1844, the 
son of Richard Carnot and Eliza (Meek) Townes. The fam- 
ily was of old Virginia origin, having settled in Amelia 
County at an early date and borne an honorable record in the early 
history of the Old Dominion, which the Mississippi branch ably sus- 
tained. Mr. Townes was in college when the Civil War came on and 
immediately joined the cavalry, where he displayed the same courage and devo- 
tion to duty which characterized his entire career. He was wounded on Shiloh 
field. In 1867, with one horse, one mule and a few farming tools as his equip- 
ment, he moved to the Delta, settling on Tallahatchie River near where the town 
of Philipp now is located. Then began the development of what became one 
of the most wonderful characters that ever lived in the Delta. He started in a 
small way with clearing land and planting cotton and corn, but he put into the 
work great energy, and rare judgment, and into his business one hundred per 
cent integrity and honesty, all accompanied by a lovable disposition and a kindly 
heart. His acreage, his business and his reputation grew from the start until, 
long before his death, he was recognized as the best planter, the best merchant 
and the best man on the Tallahatchie River. He started in a very small way 
in a big jungle, the like of which is not now to be found in the Delta, but so 
remarkable was his capacity that he acquired twelve thousand acres of the best 
land to be found anywhere and reduced a large portion of it to a high state 
of cultivation. Mr. Townes was married June 9, 1868, to Miss Emma Kennon 
of Oxford, Mississippi. They had seven children, of whom six survive : Ken- 
non Townes, Richard C. Townes, Florence Townes (now Mrs. W. P. Holland 
of Clarksdale, Mississippi), Lacey Townes, Evan Townes, and Anna Townes 
(now Mrs. W. D. Garner of Minter City, Mississippi). As the boys became 
of age or the daughters married, Mr. Townes gave each a plantation and in 
this way disposed of half of his estate prior to his death. Mr. Townes was 
almost a lifelong member of the Methodist Church, and with his own means 
erected in Minter City a house of worship for the congregation. Mr. Townes 
was not only a great developer of the Delta along material lines, but no other one 
man in his section did more than he to improve the moral tone of the com- 
munity. That country then was a frontier and it was too commonly the custom 
for men to settle their differences with weapons, but in innumerable instances 
they were induced to state their differences to Mr. Townes, and his arbitrations 
were always so just and his standing in the community so high that no man 
could justify himself in failing to accept it. 



632 




£^r 





i HE late Charles Lewis Townes, Minter City, Mississippi, and 
Memphis, Tennessee, although stricken fatally with an acute 
disease when in the midst of apparently good health and only 
a few years after having reached his majority, had already 
earned the reputation of being one of the best planters of cot- 
ton in the Mississippi Delta. He was born at Minter City, 
February 6, 1889, the son of Charles Lewis and Mary (Harper) Townes. The 
senior Mr. Townes had been one of the pioneer settlers of the fertile lands along 
the Tallahatchie River. He acquired large holdings of wild land near Minter 
City at an early date and for a number of years was one of the most potent 
factors in the wonderful development of that rich section. He gave the son 
every advantage in the way of education in order that he might be able to 
occupy, without embarrassment, the station in life to which he was entitled. 
When only twelve years of age the lad went to the Webb Brothers School at 
Bellbuckle, Tennessee, where he remained until 1905, receiving a mental train- 
ing and acquiring habits of thought and of action which were of great value 
to him throughout his entire life. In the meantime the father had moved to 
Memphis, where he spent the remainder of his life and where he was one of 
the conspicuous and active figures in the growth of Memphis for a number of 
years, and one of its most substantial and highly respected citizens. Here the 
youth attended the Memphis University School and then he went to the Uni- 
versity of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. From there he went to Harvard 
University, where he finished his education with the degree of master of arts by 
the time that he was twenty-one years of age. He was in position to select for 
his career any line. Mr. Townes chose to follow the footsteps of his father 
and the traditions of his family. The life of the southern planter with his 
broad acres appealed to him. Having spent his early life on the plantation, 
the routine of the work there was not new to him, but he also saw the other 
end of the game — the marketing of the crop to the best advantage. Hence, 
before he assumed the direct management of the plantation, he spent a season 
in the cotton office of F. M. Crump & Company, one of the most progressive 
of the cotton buying and shipping firms of Memphis. At the end of that time 
he moved to the plantation near Minter City, where he immediately became rec- 
ognized as one of the most successful planters in that section of big men, cul- 
tivating some five thousand acres. During the World War, he gave freely of his 
time to his government, serving in 1917 and 1918 as fuel administrator for 
Mississippi. Mr. Townes and Miss Evelyn Pope of Memphis were married, 
December 29, 1917. She and a son, named for the father, survive him. Mr. 
Townes died of the influenza October 15, 1918, while on a visit to Memphis. 



637 



$. g, fteese 




PIE late Hubert Holt Reese was probably the most successful 
cotton broker and certainly one of the best financiers and most 
attractive man in Memphis. He was a native of Virginia, 
having been born in Bedford County, November 12, 1858, the 
son of John and Sallie (Holt) Reese. As a lad he worked on 
his mother's farm in Bedford County and received his educa- 
tion in private schools until he was eighteen years of age when he went to 
Norfolk and began his career as office boy for the Reynolds Brothers' Cotton 
Company. During his stay in Norfolk, he and two other young friends, Jacob 
Axson Evans, now of Memphis and Fergus Reid, made a cruise an a sailing 
vessel to Liverpool. Later in life Mr. Reese made from Memphis a trip abroad 
in far more style. After a few years with the cotton company in Norfolk, 
Mr. Reese went with the Seaboard Cotton Compress Company, of which he soon 
became manager. During the time that Mr. Reese was connected with the 
Reynolds Brothers' Cotton Company, Theodore H. Price also became a clerk 
in the same office. Later, when the firm of Hubbard, Price & Company was 
organized in New York, Mr. Price offered Mr. Reese the position of the firm's 
representative, first in Macon and later in Savannah, Georgia, where he remained 
until 1889, when Mr. Price withdrew from the firm and it became Hubbard 
Brothers & Company. Mr. Reese by that time had become one of the best 
posted men in the South in the cotton commission business. He brought that 
experience, coupled with a most attractive personality, sterling honesty and a 
high degree of efficiency with him to Memphis in 1889 as the representative 
here of Hubbard Brothers & Company. He retained that position and maintained 
that high character until his death here, February 16, 1916. Since that time 
the business has been conducted on the same plane by his only son, Hubert 
Kearsley Reese. Mr. Reese opened the first office in that line in this important 
cotton center, was the first and he and his son were the only representatives 
of that firm here and the office has the distinction of being the only one of 
great age that has been maintained without interruption through the panics 
and various vicissitudes of the cotton market during the past thirty years. 
Mr. Reese was always active in any movement for the upbuilding of Memphis, 
both materially and socially. For years he was a director in the old Mercantile 
Bank, having resigned prior to its collapse. He was also a director in the 
Memphis Terminal Corporation and a member of its executive committee, and 
president of the Union Land & Improvement Company. He was one of the 
veteran members of the Tennessee and Chickasaw Guards clubs and a charter 
member of the Memphis Country Club. Mr. Reese and Miss Rebecca Kearsley 
were married January 30, 1889, in Charlestown, West Virginia. She and their 
only child, Hubert Kearsley Reese, survive him. 



638 





f t 




<fr.?C7>£* 



$. A. $fmrr 




HE late Captain Henry Newton Pharr, in his conception of the 
St. Francis Levee system, rare tact and untiring energy in 
organizing it, leadership in maintaining the organization through 
its early disasters, and engineering skill and sterling honesty 
in locating and constructing its line from New Madrid, Mis- 
souri, to the mouth of the St. Francis River, did more for the 
wealth and glory of the State of Arkansas, and for Southeastern Missouri than 
any other man has done, and there was no desire on his part for any profit 
beyond that which would accrue to the alluvial basin at large. Captain Pharr 
was born in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, March 5, 1834, was reared near 
Raleigh, Shelby County, Tennessee, and died October 20, 1897, at LaGrange, 
Arkansas, where his home had been for years. Captain Pharr's great-grandfather, 
Walter, migrated from Ulster County, North Ireland, to North Carolina, via 
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1763, and fought in the Revolutionary War. 
He and his wife were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. Captain Pharr's father, 
Robert Pharr, married Agnes Allen in Carolina and moved to Tennessee in 1838. 
When but a mere lad, the father died and the real leadership of the family was 
assumed by Henry Newton. He got the best education that he could at the 
common schools in his vicinity and managed to attend the college at LaGrange, 
Tennessee, where he had in a French teacher, a most efficient tutor in mathematics 
from whom he learned both the science and the language. He pursued this 
science, first as a land surveyor and then in its higher branches, until he became 
one of the leading engineers in the country. At the outbreak of the Civil War 
he enlisted in a company of the Rangers of Des Arc, Arkansas, where he then 
resided, was wounded under Sterling Price at Wilson's Creek, recuperated at 
home, rejoined the army, as an engineer officer fortified Island No. 10, became 
captain of Company B, Third Engineer Regiment, Cheatham's Division, Hardee's 
Corps, Johnston's Army, C. S. A., and remained for the surrender at Benton- 
ville, South Carolina. Returning to Tennessee, he hauled cotton, farmed the 
Pillow place near Helena, bought a place near LaGrange, Arkansas, worked as 
an engineer on the Lower Yazoo and Louisiana levees, assisted in the construc- 
tion of many railroad lines, bought in 1886 some 3,500 acres of land in Lee 
County, Arkansas, from 1890 to 1893 canvassed the owners of 2,500 square 
miles in Arkansas and 1,000 in Missouri in the St. Francis Basin, converted 
them into levee men, was first president of the preliminary organization, and, 
until his death, the chief engineer of the St. Francis levee boards of both 
Arkansas and Missouri for its levee line of two hundred and eighteen miles. 
Captain Pharr and Miss Stella Hoggue Scott were married September 1, 1870. 
Their only living child is Harry Nelson Pharr, his father's worthy successor in 
levee work. 



643 



Heopolb ilarfeg 




HE late Leopold Marks, for whom the City of Marks, Missis- 
sippi, is named, was one of the most remarkable men developed 
in and who helped so greatly to develop the Mississippi Delta. 
As a youth he fled from his native city of Labau, West Prussia, 
to escape service in the German Army and in search of the 
freedom and opportunities of the United States, landed in 
New York at the age of seventeen years with eighteen cents in cash, knowing 
neither the language nor any man who lived where it was spoken, was main 
factor in creating a great county of which he was the first representative, aided 
in building its main city which bears his name, and died leaving a posterity 
worthy of its ancestry, six thousand acres of magnificent land and a spotless 
name revered by all who knew him. Mr. Marks was born February 7, 1851, 
the son of I. Marks, a merchant and planter. He was educated in the grammar 
and high schools in Germany. In New York he worked long enough to be 
able to furnish a pack with jewelry which he peddled across country until he 
reached Friar Point, Mississippi, and went thence across the Delta to where 
Marks now is. There he bought a small trading boat which plied the Coldwater 
River. He had vision enough to realize that the dense forests of that section 
would not be neglected while the world needed lumber and that the fertile 
banks of Cassidy's Bayou and Coldwater River could not long lie idle if 
people were to be clad. He bought at forty cents per acre, and even less, lands 
that became worth $300 to $400 per acre. Later he opened a store at Marks 
which grew into a tremendous business and for years was the main trading 
point for a big scope of country. His mercantile and planting business grew so 
rapidly that for years prior to his death he was the leading man in the big Delta 
territory east of Clarksdale. In 1877 he took such an active and efficient part in 
the organization of Quitman County that he was sent as its first member of the 
State Legislature, where he served for eight years. He was a strong advocate 
of an adequate levee system and served for years as a commissioner for the 
Upper Yazoo district. When the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad started 
to build its line from Lake Cormorant directly to Tutwiler, he gave without cost 
the right-of-way through his plantations and ten acres of land in Marks, without 
cost. In fact, he was a leader in thought, in time and with his money in every 
movement for the improvement of the county. Liberal almost to a fault, no 
worthy cause or needy person failed to receive his beneficence, and during his 
entire career he made it a point to provide work for any one who wanted it. 
He and Miss Pauline Marks were married in 1875. They had five sons, Sam M., 
Henry H., Marcus L., Maurice I. and Robert F. Mrs. Marks died in 1900 and 
he married Miss Sadie Whitehead. Their children are Edwin and Lucille. 



644 





* 





P/(cI^<SCjl-. 



ST. $. Clarke 




|N THE death of Senator James Paul Clarke, October 1, 1916, 
the State of Arkansas suffered a loss which she immediately 
recognized as that of one of the two greatest citizens in the 
entire history of the State by erecting his statue in the National 
Hall of Fame. Senator Clarke had served his adopted State 
as a member of the lower house of the legislature, state 
senator, attorney general, lieutenant governor, governor and senator in the 
national congress. He was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, August 18, 1854, 
the son of Walter J. and Ellen (White) Clarke. He received his early education 
in Mississippi and in 1878 was graduated from the law department of the 
University of Virginia. In the following year he entered the practice of his 
profession in Helena, Arkansas. From the beginning he took high ground as 
a lawyer and maintained that position until the time of his death. Although 
the major portion of his time was consumed in politics, in which all of his ambi- 
tions were fulfilled, he was at all times a leader at the bar of Arkansas and 
during his three terms in the United States Senate recognized as the equal of any 
lawyer in that body. He had been a resident of Arkansas but seven years when 
he was elected to represent Phillips County in the Legislature in 1886. Upon the 
expiration of that term he was elected to the State Senate for the four-year 
term, during the better half of which he was president of that body and as 
such really lieutenant governor. He passed from that position, in 1893, to that 
of attorney general of the State and in 1895 assumed the governor's chair. 
Declining a renomination, he challenged Senator James K. Jones for the United 
States Senate without success, and the next six years practiced his profession 
of law in Little Rock, at the expiration of which time he easily succeeded 
Senator Jones, taking his seat March 4, 1903. He was twice re-elected by 
his constituents and took such high rank in that august body that when the 
Democrats regained control of it he was chosen its president pro tempore, and 
again elected to that position. This honor was not in recognition of pure party 
service, for where he deemed a principle involved he could not submit to his 
party's dictation, as shown by his support of the measure for direct election 
of senators; opposition to the ship-purchase act and the eight-hour act, and 
support of the Panama Canal act. It was purely in recognition of his sterling 
integrity, scholarly attainments and unquestioned honesty. He was independ- 
ent of any person, faction or influence in his seeking of office, his campaign for 
election and his course after election. Popular clamor passed by, not into, his 
ears. His only guide in office was what was right, just, honest and honorable, 
and he never sought the advice of any man in determining these points. 



649 



#. HL. probnax 





jHE late George Taylor Brodnax, who built up in Memphis the 
largest jewelry and diamond business in the Mid-South, and 

T&ii whose mail order jewelry business at the time of his death 
fjCj was the largest in the United States, was born April 9, 1869, 
in Mason, Tennessee. He was the son of Richard Thomas 
j) and Sallie (Taylor) Brodnax, having come from two most 
cultured familes. He attended the pubilc schools in Mason and later finished his 
literary education in the private school of Judge James Byars in Covington, 
Tennessee. Later he took a business course in Memphis, and also a course 
in telegraphy. When Mr. Brodnax was fifteen years of age his father, who 
had been an extensive planter and large merchant, died. It was at the lowest 
ebb in the tide of finances in West Tennessee and the family estate was 
wiped almost entirely away. Mr. Brodnax accepted a position as telegraph 
operator at Hernando, Mississippi, but soon returned to Memphis, where he 
was connected for three years with the jewelry firm of C. L. Byrd & Company. 
Then he went into the bicycle business, but after a few years returned to the 
Byrd firm, where he remained until 1897. By that time he had saved $3,500 and 
with that modest capital he entered on his own account into the jewelry business 
in which line he had become thoroughly proficient. He was soon joined by 
Mr. T. J. Deupree who, until his untimely death, was a strong factor in the 
upbuilding of the business. From this modest start has grown the present exten- 
sive business which bears the name of Geo. T. Brodnax, Inc., and stands out as a 
monument to his undaunted courage, remarkable ability as a merchant and abso- 
lute honesty. His geniality was apparent in every position, and at all times a 
pleasant greeting and a hearty smile were ready for his humblest employe as 
well as for the most valued patron of the store. Mr. Brodnax never sought or 
held any public office, but during his entire business career he was active in every 
movement for the upbuilding of Memphis and the surrounding territory. He 
was a man of boundless energy, clean-cut and aggressive in business, but of a 
kindly nature so that he could be approached at any time as a genuine friend, 
while his wide range of travel both for business and pleasure had broadened 
him into a cosmopolitan. He was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, 
Tennessee Club, Memphis Country Club and Colonial Country Club, having 
been president of the last named organization at the time of his death, February 
19, 1917. Mr. Brodnax was married June 20, 1894, to Miss Lucy Watkins, 
daughter of Dr. Thomas Richard and Sue (Cannon) Watkins, both old and 
refined families. A kind and indulgent father and loving husband, his home 
life was ideal. Their children are: Sue, later Mrs. Jobe and now Mrs. Wilkins 
Williamson ; Frances Margaret, now dead ; George Taylor, and Lucy Virginia ; 
and grandchildren, Andrew K. and Margaret Jobe. 



650 




^>^ ~-^.^<^>l~-*£* ^y^ 




&■ Wti-fr 



. C? -\y\ A^\y 



€. OTtt^mamt 




[HE late Emile Witzmann, for half a century a resident of Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, and one of its most scholarly citizens, leader 
in developing in the Mid-South a love for and taste in music, 
pioneer dealer in all that pertained to music, and successful 
business man, was born in Kranichfeld, Germany, August 7, 
1841, the son of Frederick and Mary Witzmann. Of an artistic 
temperament, he studied music and languages in Dresden until he was sixteen 
years of age, making marked progress. At the end of that time he became 
dissatisfied with the trend of thought and government in Germany, and left 
for freer lands— lands offerings greater opportunity for the individual. He 
went first to London, where he remained for two years as an advanced pupil 
and at the same time a teacher of music and languages. In England he formed 
a close friendship for Mr. William Keen King, which later had much to do 
with Mr. Witzmann's career. From 1859 to 1866, Mr. Witzmann lived in Paris, 
where he perfected himself in music, became an accomplished linguist and an 
experienced teacher of both. In the meanwhile Mr. King had come to the 
United States and for some years escorted parties of young men, largely from 
the Mid-South, on trips abroad, spending much of their time in Paris. There 
he and Mr. Witzmann became more intimate, and Mr. Witzmann, through him, 
met many youths from the Memphis territory who later became the leaders 
in this section. In 1866, Mr. Witzmann decided to come to America with 
Mr. King and came directly to Memphis. His talent for music and his thorough 
proficiency in seven languages were quickly appreciated by Memphis and he 
soon had large classes in both studies. After a time he began buying such 
pianos as were offered on the market and renting them. This became such a 
profitable side line that in 1872 the foundation for the present firm of E. Witz- 
mann & Company was laid when Mr. Witzmann rented as a wareroom for his 
pianos the building at No. 103 North Second Street, the first and finest iron 
front building west of Pittsburgh. His reputation for honesty and integrity, 
his wide knowledge of music and large acquaintance gave him an excellent 
natural clientele and soon he began to add the sale of new musical instruments 
to his rental business. This grew so rapidly that at the end of two or three 
years, Mr. Witzmann decided to go permanently into the piano business. He 
bought the building at No. 99 North Second Street, moved into it and later 
bought the original home of his business together with the intervening building. 
There the business grew to be a real institution of this section, containing 
"Everything Musical." Mr. Witzmann was married December 30, 1885, to Miss 
Susan Lang Wade, who still mourns his death, which occurred November 22, 
1914. Their children are Miss Mary Louise, now Mrs. Frederick O. Gamble, and 
Henry W. Witzmann. 



655 



CoL &. Jf . £bbap 




HE death of Colonel Richard Felix Abbay of Commerce, 
Mississippi, in Memphis last year, removed from the Upper 
Yazoo Delta one of its oldest, most highly respected, most 
influential, most progressive, most useful and wealthiest citizens. 
Colonel Abbay was literally a pioneer of the Delta, having gone 
there in 1838 with his parents, when a mere babe in arms. The 
family was a distinguished one of Middle Tennessee, having come there from 
Virginia at an early date in the history of Tennessee. Colonel Abbay's father 
had seen the possibilities of the Mississippi Delta in the early thirties and bought 
at what is now Commerce from the Indians a tract of high sandy river bank land 
in 1832. The family went back to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1838, where Colonel 
Abbay was born on July 9 of that year. But the family returned to the Delta as 
soon as possible, and there Colonel Abbay grew up until time to begin taking an 
education. Then he went back to Middle Tennessee and received his early coach- 
ing from Mr. Crocker of White's Creek Springs in Davidson County. He finished 
his literary education at Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee, at the age 
of nineteen years. It was the custom then among the cultured families of the 
South for every young man to educated in some professions and hence Colonel 
Abbay returned to Tunica County, Mississippi, read law under General James R. 
Chalmers, and for a time pursued his profession, but gradually abandoned it for 
planting, and, upon the death of his father, took over entirely his interests. The 
business grew from the start and later under the firm name of Abbay & Leather- 
man, it became one of the strongest in the Delta, cultivating some five thousand 
acres. Colonel Abbay served his state with signal honors for nearly forty years 
in one or the other houses of the state legislature. Real development of the upper 
Delta counties and those of the lower back Delta was out of the question without 
protection from the frequent floods. Colonel Abbay's ability in the legislative 
halls were of inestimable value, not only to his Tunica-County constituency, but 
to the Delta at large, especially in the matter of framing and enacting the levee 
laws, as well as in general laws. Later he took a very active part in the further 
development of the Delta lands through drainage and improvements in the road 
systems. As an appreciation for his legislative speech which won the Chickasaw 
School fund fight, he was presented with a gold-headed cane and called "the 
Chickasaw Chief." 

In fact, for more than half a century there was no movement originated for 
the betterment of his community that he was not a leader in if not the head of. 
He was president at the time of his death of the Irwin-Leatherman Cotton 
Company of Memphis, owned largely by himself, his sister, Mrs. M. S. Leather- 
man, and his nephew, S. R. Leatherman. His death occurred June 5, 1919, in 
Memphis, and the remains were interred in the old family lot at Nashville. 



656 




Sl_ -?> v^-^-^<e^ 



? 




foat^ 



C. W. JHcCrahJ 




I N THE death of Charles Thomas McCraw at his home in 
Braden, Tennessee, on the morning of April 15, 1920, Fayette 
County lost a most useful and respected citizen and Memphis 
a most substantial and successful business man. Mr. McCraw 
was born in Burnett County, Texas, some sixty miles from 
Austin, in the year 1856, the son of Dr. Thomas Miller and 
Mary Elizabeth (Ballou) McCraw. When Mr. McCraw was only three years 
of age the family moved from Texas to Virginia, settling in Halifax County, 
and it was there that he grew to manhood. He attended the public schools in 
Halifax County, but at the age of fourteen years his strong bent for merchandis- 
ing had developed to the point that he went to work in a store there as a 
clerk. He remained there until he was twenty-one years of age, and then he 
moved to Tennessee, settling first on the farm of Colonel John Gallaway near 
the station on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad named for him. Re remained 
there for eight years, and in 1885, with his brother, Mr. J. W. McCraw, he 
moved to Braden, the next station east, where they went into business under the 
firm name of C. T. McCraw & Company, doing a general mercantile and gin- 
ning business. Mr. McCraw lost his left arm in the gin during the ginning 
of the first bale of cotton, but his power was in his brain and not in his 
brawn, and the loss of the arm did not deter him in his career. The firm of 
C. T. McCraw & Company was not a large one at the beginning, but it had 
in it integrity, capacity, sound judgment and a vision of the future for West 
Tennessee which few possessed and fewer were able to take advantage of. 
At a time when so many of the stores, both in the cities and smaller towns of 
this section of the country went down in the general depression, Mr. McCraw's 
firm continued to expand and to become more solid. Most of the land owners 
in his section wanted to dispose of their holdings. Mr. McCraw realized their 
ultimate value and as his profits increased he became a steady investor in the 
nice rolling lands of the northwest section of Fayette County. He continued 
this policy even after the others saw that the lands were a good investment 
and prices began rising. At the time of his death he owned some six thousand 
acres, all of it worth many times more than it cost him. In 1901, Mr. McCraw 
with Mr. P. A. Perkins and Mr. E. F. Webber, formed the McCraw, Perkins, 
Webber Company, which still exists as one of the strongest cotton factoring 
firms in Memphis. Five years later the Currie-McCraw Company started its 
successful wholesale grocery business in Memphis. He was also president of 
the Bank of Mason. With the success of all of these institutions, Mr. McCraw 
retained the same democratic, pleasant and unassuming manner. Mr. McCraw 
and Miss Mary McCraw Wright were married in Farmville, Virginia, Decem- 
ber 11, 1881. She died in 1886, leaving one child, Miss Mary Elizabeth McCraw. 



661 



ft. 3. JBarnell 




[HE late Rowland Jones Darnell, Memphis, Tennessee, was one 

T. of the pioneers of the lumbermen of the North who realized 
fJsS the value of the Southern hardwoods, one of the first to move 
\szJ South and take advantage of the situation and for a number 
of years one of the largest operators in that line and one 
of the most successful manufacturers in the United States. 
Mr. Darnell was born in Freedom, Indiana, December 9, 1854, the son of Isaac 
Armour Mark Warner and Emmaline Jones (Rowland) Darnell. He went to 
the public schools of Freedom and of Spencer, and at the age of sixteen years 
he entered the University of Indiana at Bloomington. However, he remained 
there but a short time and went to New York, where he went to work for 
I. T. Williams, an extensive dealer in lumber in that city. He remained there 
for some time and then returned to Indiana, settling first in Indianapolis. 
This was about the time that the giant forests of forked leaf white oak which 
the Indiana people of the previous generation had thought inexhaustible and 
which had been generally classed as the best in the United States began to 
become scarce, and the ones of them who had vision began to turn to the South 
for the future supply of the United States in the hardwood line. Mr. Darnell 
came South in 1881, settling first at Curve, Tennessee. The following year he 
came to Memphis and erected a saw mill here under the name of I. M. Darnell & 
Sons. In 1897 he went into the lumber and milling business for himself, later 
incorporating his business as R. J. Darnell, Incorporated. Both while con- 
nected with the original firm and later in business for himself, Mr. Darnell 
was one of the most daring, active and successful operators in the Mid-South. 
He was quick to grasp the value of the primeval forests of the Mississippi 
Delta, where up to that time the majority of the owners of timber land con- 
sidered the timber a liability rather than an asset, an expensive obstacle to be 
removed to make way for planting cotton. One of the early large purchases 
was a large tract of land in the upper portion of Quitman County, Mississippi, 
about the time that the railroad was built directly from Lake Cormorant to 
Tutwiler, the present station on that road being named Rowland, for Mr. Dar- 
nell. Later he acquired a large tract near Leland, Mississippi, and still later, 
a tract magnificently timbered near the confluence of Yocono and Tallahatchie 
Rivers in Mississippi. For the manufacture of the timber off the latter tract, 
Mr. Darnell built the Batesville & Southwestern Railroad and erected a large 
mill at Batesville. During all of these large operations, Mr. Darnell lived 
in Memphis and was active every moment for up-buiding the city. He and Miss 
Mathilda Johanna Louisa Taenzer of Hancock, Michigan, were married Janu- 
ary 6, 1885. Mr. Darnell died June 10, 1916. 



662 




€. €. £bent 

jHE late Thomas Edward Avent, Minter City, Mississippi, for 

Thalf a century one of the leading factors in the development 
ilra of the upper portion of Leflore County and Sunflower County, 
(f/S\ Mississippi, was one of the early pioneers who brought system 
and order out of chaos and converted the wilderness into the 
garden of today. He was born in Halifax County, North 
Carolina, April 20, 1836, the son of Benjamin Ward and Mary (Eley) Avent. 
In 1851 the family migrated to Water Valley, Mississippi, and Mr. Avent grew 
up there. He joined the Confederacy at the first call, becoming a member of the 
115th Mississippi Infantry, attached to the brigade of General Walthall, the equal 
of any under the Stars and Bars, as indicated by the fact that General Forrest 
called for General Walthall to help him save the wreckage of Hood's army in 
the retreat from Nashville to the Tennessee River. For a year and a half 
Mr. Avent was a scout under General Walthall and it was during that time that 
the general showed his appreciation of his daring. A blind woman has knitted 
a pair of socks and sent them to the general to be given by him to the bravest 
man in his command. General Walthall presented them to Mr. Avent. He was 
wounded at the battle of Fishing Creek, but after a short furlough returned to 
the colors, spending the last two years of the war as a member of Forrest's 
Cavalry. After the surrender at Gainesville, Alabama, he returned to Yalo- 
busha County. He was married January 24, 1865, to Miss Eliza Fisher, daugh- 
ter of Judge E. S. Fisher, a distinguished lawyer of Coffeeville. Judge Fisher 
was attorney for Mrs. Evans and administrator of a tract of land which she 
owned at Palo Alto on the Tallahatchie River, near the line of Leflore and Tal- 
lahatchie counties. Soon after their marriage Mr. Avent and his young bride 
moved down to the Delta and took charge of that place. A few years later 
Mr. Avent bought what now is known as the Rack Rent place, in Leflore 
County, four miles from Minter City. There he began a vigorous fight against 
the wildest of both animal and vegetable life for the reduction of that fertile 
land to a state of cultivation. The timber was virgin and the dense canebrakes 
abounded with bears, wolves, deer, panthers and catamounts which preyed on 
his crops, garden and domestic animals. Mr. Avent's energy, courage, capacity 
for organization and integrity showed from the first and he soon began adding 
to his original plantation by purchases of adjoining lands, both in Leflore and 
later in Sunflower County, which he cleared up until he became one of the 
leading planters of that section of the Delta. In 1915 he bought a large planta- 
tion near Rayville, Louisiana, and went there to take charge of it. He died 
there in January, 1918, after an illness of only a few days, thus ending a long, 
useful and honorable career, and being survived by eight children. 



667 



<&. Jk. ^mttf) 



"His God created him with a true perception of man's right to 
man and he lived following this light with firm faith in the Savior's 
reward in eternity for so doing." 




(HIS inscription upon the tall marble shaft marking the spot 

T.. where the mortal remains of the late George Kinnebrew Smith 
lira lie in the cemetery in Indianola, Mississippi, is a marvelous 
Uf3\ summary of the life of that truly great man, usually referred 
to as "the father of Indianola." Mr. Smith was born in 
Yazoo County, Mississippi, December 25, 1844, the son of 
Edmund and Ann (Burris) Smith. When the lad was but six years 
of age his father moved to Sunflower County, where there was then no 
school, but close private study and wide reading made of Mr. Smith a man 
of unusually broad information. He was the youngest of a large family whom 
his father brought to the wilderness with his slaves, first getting out timber 
and rafting it down Sunflower River and then clearing land and planting cotton. 
He built the first house in that section of the country which was painted and 
it was known all along the Sunflower River as the White House. When the 
Civil War came on, young George Smith was about to join the army when he 
had the misfortune to have his right hand shot off while hunting. In the 
meanwhile his father had died and left to his widow, among other pieces of 
property, the land upon which Indianola now is situated. This was heavily 
encumbered and Mr. Smith went to work to save the estate for his mother. 
He did so with signal success, gradually accumulating lands for himself and 
clearing them. He became an extensive planter and for many years shipped all 
his crop and brought in all of his supplies from New Orleans and Vicksburg 
by boat, as the first railroad (what is now the Southern from Greenville to 
Greenwood) was built in 1888 from Greenville to the Sunflower River at John- 
sonville. The latter point then was the county seat of Sunflower County and 
Mr. Smith was one of the prime movers in the transfer of the county head- 
quarters to Indianola. Then he cut up his plantation there and sold the lots 
mainly on long time, even lending money to those who bought in order that 
they might improve the property. Mr. Smith was a member of the Methodist 
Church and served one term as a county supervisor. He was married in Mem- 
phis December 3, 1873, to Miss Augusta A. Heathman, she also of pioneer Delta 
stock and a woman of rare refinement and culture. He died, April 27, 1913, in 
Oxford, Mississippi, leaving five children: Mrs. W. J. Holt, Indianola; Faison 
H. Smith, Indianola ; J. Martin Smith, Clarksdale, Mississippi, and Mrs. Herman 
Glenn, Oxford ; and Edmund B. Smith, who died October 18, 1918. 



668 




V, rC . <<X<-^JZf%^ 



Br. J. Jf . ©able* 




>HE late Dr. James Franklin Davies and his father, Dr. James 

T. Frazier Davies, were pioneers in the development of North- 
7|&j eastern Arkansas, both materially and in the lines of culture, 
(§W education and refinement. Both were men of literary educa- 
tion, thoroughly schooled in the profession of medicine, of 
gentle manners and such force of character as to make their 
felt in their communities. The elder Dr. Davies was a graduate of 
the Philadelphia Medical College, which in its day stood at the head of Amer- 
ican institutions in that line. The younger Dr. Davies was born in Fairmont, 
West Virginia, May 19, 1825, his father having moved there from France and 
his mother being Margaret Fleming, daughter of Benona Fleming, who came 
from Scotland. The family was one of wealth in West Virginia. In 1850 both 
the father and son moved from there to Northeast Arkansas, settling in Greene 
County, where the senior doctor died in 1863. The son had taken his literary 
education in West Virginia and after moving to Arkansas he took the course 
and received his degree as doctor of medicine. Returning to Greene County, 
he practiced his profession and acquired large tracts of land. He was elected 
in 1854 to the State Senate when the trip had to be made by horseback to Little 
Rock. He was one of the most distinguished and useful members of that body. 
When the South seceded, Dr. Davies promptly enlisted as a surgeon, but later 
organized a battalion of fighting men which he commended with daring bravery 
until it was consolidated with Colonel Solomon G. Kitchen's regiment, in which 
Dr. Davies served as major until the surrender. Then he moved to Mississippi 
County, Arkansas, where he spent the rest of his useful life at Golden Lake 
until he died there in April, 1880. He was one of the most conspicuous men 
there, as he had been in Greene County, and in 1872 was elected from Missis- 
sippi County to the State Senate. While he was a member of that body the 
Black Hawk War occurred and he was an active factor in that affair. At Golden 
Lake he conducted the Davies Mercantile Company in addition to his practice as 
a physician and surgeon. In both commercial and professioinal life he was 
eminently successful. His ingenuity in the pioneer days was shown by saving 
the life of a wounded lad by irrigating the wound through the use of a barrel 
of water in the loft and a cane leading down from it. Dr. Davies was a Mason 
of high rank, being a member of the Grand Lodge. He was also on the State 
Medical Board in 1871. He and Miss Elizabeth Duckworth were married in 
Greene County in 1853. She was the mother of two children, Cora and Ella, 
afterwards Mrs. W. K. Harrison, both dead. This wife lived but a few years 
and Dr. Davies was married in 1865 to Miss Victoria Wilson, daughter of 
Joseph and Martha Wilson, and sister of Lee Wilson. Their children were : 
Dora (Mrs. J. A. Merrell), James (deceased), Eva (Mrs. J. H. Elkin), and 
Boaz. 



673 



M. ft. Hane 





| HE late William Thomas Lane of Jonesboro, Arkansas, was 

T a worthy and successful representative of one of the oldest 

ml families in Craighead County — in fact the family was far 
^/h older in that section than is the county. He was born Decem- 
ber 30, 1850, some ten miles north of where the City of 
Jonesboro now stands, and died in Jonesboro August 4, 1916. 
He was the only son of William Thomas and Mary (Hughes) Lane. The 
elder Mr. Lane was of the most sturdy Illinois stock of the early times and 
while a resident of that state was an officer in the militia and held his com- 
mission which was signed by General Andrew Jackson. The blood of the 
pioneers was so strong in his veins that in 1840 he emigrated from his Illinois 
home to what then was about as wild a country as could be found, near the 
foot of Crowley's Ridge and near enough the St. Francis River to use that 
stream. He was a contemporary of Rufus Snoddy, Daniel O'Guinn, Yancey 
Broadaway, Joshua Grinder, John Hamilton, Asa Puckett, Eli Quarles, "Uncle" 
Jack Pierce, John and Thomas Simmons, Perry Osborn, James Stotts, Harde- 
man Puryear, D. R. Tyler, the McCrackens, Elias Mackey, Henry Powell, 
William Q. Lane, John Anderson, and Christopher and George Cook. The 
elder Mr. Lane erected a store and during his residence in Arkansas was both 
a merchant and one of the pioneers in the business of rafting logs down the 
St. Francis River to what markets he could find below. That latter business 
then was just the reverse of what it was later. Then the only trouble was to 
find a market for the timber. Later it was to find the timber for the market. 
Then there was no trouble in finding all of the timber that one was of a mind 
to cut and there was no danger of getting over the line for there was no line. 
The hazards were equally great for the rafter, both down with the timber and 
up with the proceeds of its sale — the one from the perils of the elements, 
and the other from the outlaws likely to be encountered. And no one this 
side of the Great Divide knows whether the elder Mr. Lane succumbed to the 
one or the other. All that the widow and little son ever knew was that he 
left on a trip with a raft and that years later they identified what was left 
of his mortal remains by a suspender buckle and a timber auger. The widow 
died soon afterwards and the lad, who later became one of the strongest char- 
acters in the county, was reared by his grandmother. His early education was 
limited, but he had industry, integrity, honesty and courage. He was success- 
ful in farming and stock raising until 1880, when he was elected sheriff. His 
administration of that important office was so efficient that he served six con- 
secutive terms. In 1900 he was chosen cashier of the Bank of Jonesboro and 
in 1913 became its president, holding that position until his death. He married 
Miss Martha Thurman December 7, 1887. W. T. Lane, Jr., survives them. 



674 



3L B. Mttiv 




IN THE death of Allen Davis Neely at Clarksdale, Mississippi, 
on Wednesday, March 24, 1920, the upper Mississippi Delta 
lost one of its most active and most successful planters and 
land dealers, popular in all circles where he was known, and 
that included not only practically all of the upper Delta of 
Mississippi, but also a large portion of Louisiana. Mr. Neely 
was a native Mississippian, having been born in Tallahatchie County, not far 
from Oakland, June 3, 1874, the son of Allen Gattis and Eliza Adeline Neely. 
He received an early education in the common schools of his native county, 
and at the age of twenty years went to work as a clerk in a general store in 
Oakland, after having put in the intervening years on the farm. His experience, 
both as farmer and storekeeper gained there, proved of great value to him in his 
later years in the Delta. After two years in the Oakland store he sought in 
the fertile lands of the Delta portion of Tallahatchie County, what he realized 
was a broader field for his ambition than that afforded by the hill section, 
which at that time was not enjoying the porsperity which later came to it. 
His first work was at a small salary for Mr. Mike P. Sturdivant at Glendora, 
in the combination role of bookkeeper and plantation rider. After six months, 
a better paying position opened over in Washington County with the Richardson 
interests, and he went there as manager of one of their plantations, continuing 
in that position until 1901, when he returned to his native county as manager 
for Mr. Jerry Robinson's plantation at Albin, on Cassidy's Bayou. In 1903 
he went with Maxwell & Yerger as manager for their plantation at Mounds, 
Louisiana, where he remained two years, only to go back to Tallahatchie County. 
At the end of four years there, he and Mr. Ben. E. Townes formed a partner- 
ship to operate plantations in Sunflower County under the firm name of 
Townes & Neely. The capital of the firm was $8,000, raised on Mr. Townes' 
endorsement and the energy and ability of Mr. Neely. Such signal success was 
attained in this venture that in eight years he was able to buy Mr. Townes' 
interest for $100,000. Now firmly on his feet financially, he bought a plantation in 
Washington County, which he improved so rapidly that he was able to sell it at 
a nice profit at the end of the same year. Then he moved to Clarksdale, where 
he bought the Prairie Plantation from W. D. Corley, which, in turn, he also 
sold for a good profit. He had developed himself not only into one of the 
most successful planters in the Delta, but also one of the best judges of what 
to buy and when to sell — in other words, a man of broad vision. With ample 
means for any enterprise, he was awaiting an opportunity for a good invest- 
ment when the end came. Mr. Neely and Miss Tyna Womble were married 
November 8, 1899, and they were a most devoted and affectionate couple. The 
union was blessed with five children : Edward Allen, who was educated at Castle 
Heights School, Lebanon, Tennessee ; Mary Byrd, Ellie Maude, Virginia Alline 
and Frances Elizabeth. 



679 



ft. 1L. forban 





OBERT LEE JORDAN, president of the Central Cigar & 
Tobacco Company, and secretary of the Memphis Motor Car 

RigS Company, Memphis, Tennessee, was born in Milan, Gibson 
(tv County, Tennessee, April 27, 1866, the son of Doctor Marcus 
DeLafayette and Martha (Hillsman) Jordan. He attended 
the public schools of Milan and, when the school was not in 
session, spent his time working in a retail drug store. At the age of twenty 
years he was a traveling salesman for drugs. Six years later he formed a con- 
nection with large New York manufacturers of tobacco in which line he has 
been interested ever since and has become the leader in the Mid-South. He 
traveled for six years selling tobacco to the jobbing trade and covering almost 
the entire eastern half of the United States, and was rated as one of the best 
salesmen in that territory. In 1905 he entered the tobacco jobbing line in Mem- 
phis under the firm name of Jordan, Gibson & Baum. Two years later this 
firm was consolidated with the Tom Morton Tobacco Company, and the fol- 
lowing year Mr. Jordan became the head of that concern. In January, 1909, 
the company was reorganized as the Central Cigar & Tobacco Company, with 
Mr. Jordan as the president. Under Mr. Jordan's direction the company has 
developed into one of the leaders in that line in the United States. In 1913 
Mr. Jordan organized the Memphis Motor Car Company, of which he is sec- 
retary. He has also from time to time made large and successful investments 
in Delta timber lands. Few men in Memphis have given more time than he to 
the public with no desire for personal reward. Not eligible for military service 
in the World War, he entered heart and soul into the campaigns to back with 
money the men in the field. For both the second and third Liberty loans, he 
was chairman for Shelby County and district manager for Shelby, Tipton and 
Fayette counties. Mr. Jordan put such a high degree of energy and capacity 
for organization into the campaign that his territory went far over the top. 
His success was so conspicuous in these two campaigns that he was induced to 
become Tennessee State chairman in the campaigns for the fourth Liberty and 
Victory loans and again sent his jurisdiction far over the top. In fact in the 
last issue Memphis was conspicuous throughout the United States for both the 
rapidity and the per cent of her subscription. Mr. Jordan served as president 
of the Business Men's Club for the 1915-16 term, and it was during his incum- 
bency that the name was changed to the Business Men's Club — Chamber of 
Commerce. His administration located at the North Memphis Driving Park 
the first aviation field here and out of this grew the Park Field at Millington. 
He was active in electing the citizens' city administration in 1919. Mr. Jordan 
and Miss Louise H. Hardin of Savannah, Tennessee, were married December 
20, 1892. Their children are Robert H. and Miss Elizabeth Irwin Jordan. 



680 




R. I.. |( )KD \X 



681 



3T. ft. EutriStll 




JUNE HOWELL RUDISILL. Memphis, Tennessee, who has 
done more than probably any other one man to systematize the 
coal business of the city, was born in Brownsville. Tennessee, 
February 10, 1876, the son of George Edwin and Emma 
(Howell) Rudisill. He received his early education in the 
public schools of Memphis, but at the age of eleven years 
stopped" school and went to work, his first position being with the Milburn Gin 
& Machine Company. He remained there until 1890 and then went with the 
Conaway Real Estate Agency, where he had charge of the rental department 
in 1892, when he left that concern for the Cole Manufacturing Company, where 
he had charge of that company's city books for three years. Then, in 1895. he 
went into the coal business, in which in less than fifteen years he became the 
most conspicuous figure in the city. His first venture in that line was the organi- 
zation as a new concern of the Rudisill Coal Company. He made such a success of 
this that in 1906 he organized the Memphis Coal Company. Several years later he 
and his associates bought the old-established business of Hunt Brothers and 
organized the Hunt-Berlin Coal Company. He was active in the formation of 
the Latura, YVhitten Coal Company in 1912. Two years later he and his asso- 
ciates acquired the retail business in Memphis of the Galloway Coal Company 
and organized the Galloway-Eberhart Coal Company. In 1918 they bought out 
the Pittsburgh Coal & Coke Company. Mr. Rudisill is the president of the 
Memphis Coal Company, secretary and treasurer of both the Galloway-Eber- 
hart Coal Company and the Hunt-Berlin Coal Company, and secretary of the 
Pittsburgh Coal & Coke Company. During the tempestuous times of the coal 
supply of the Llnited States Mr. Rudisill was most efficient in seeing that the 
people of Memphis did not suffer from cold, and when there was a question as 
to the current prices charged a committee of the Chamber of Commerce named 
at the suggestion of the Department of Justice, after careful research, justified 
the rates. Mr. Rudisill has never sought or held public office, but for many years 
served as a member of the city Democratic committee. He also has served for 
years as a member of the executive committee of the Associated Charities, and 
in the drives by the Chamber of Commerce and for the various war purposes, he 
took a most active and efficient part. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, 
the Woodmen of the World, the Chamber of Commerce of which he was sec- 
ond vice-president for one year and a director for two terms, of the Colonial 
Country Club, and is a charter member of the Evergreen Improvement Club, 
one of the pioneer and most active neighborhood civic organizations in the city. 
He and Miss Grace Weisiger were married January 24, 1899. They are the 
parents of two delightful children, June Howell, Junior, and Grace Weisiger, 
Junior. 



682 




[UNE II. RUDISILL 



683 



Wl. $. Armstrong 



ALTER PRESTON ARMSTRONG, lawyer. Memphis. Ten- 

Wnessee, is one of the best educated lawyers in the citv. one cf. 
8i3 the best grounded in the solid principles of the law. and gen- 
nCj erally considered by the profession as the equal of any man or 
his age who has ever been at the Memphis bar. He was born 
^yCS^c^S)^ October 26. 1884. in I'ittsboro. Mississippi, the son of George 
Wells and May (Cr'uthirds) Armstrong. He was reared in Coffeeville, where 
his father was a substantial merchant. He attended the public schools at home, 
Webb's School at Bellbuckle. Tennessee, and the University of Mississippi. In 
1906 he was graduated from Yale University with the degree of bachelor of arts 
and two years later the law school of the same institution gave him his degree 
of bachelor of laws. He was second in his class in scholarship and won the 
prize in debates and essays. On the first of September, 1908. Mr. Armstrong 
came to Memphis and in the office of Judge Julian C. Wilson began the practice 
of his profession. Under such able tutelage, Mr. Armstrong builded so rapidly 
upon the foundation that he had acquired at school and expanded so evenly that 
at the end of five years he became a member of the firm of Wilson & Armstrong, 
which firm has no superior in the Mid-South in the practice of civil law. Mr. 
Armstrong is equally and highly efficient as a trial lawyer, a briefer, before 
appellate courts and juries, and in consultation, in other words, an exceptional 
all-around lawyer. When the city administration assumed office January 1, 1920, 
Mr. Armstrong was not a candidate for any appointment under it. but when 
offered the city attorneyship, he accepted it at a personal sacrifice, because he 
was in sympathy with the movement which put the administration in office and 
felt that, in that capacity, he could be of service to his community. This he has 
done in many ways, but especially in the matter of street car fares. When 
s*even-cent fare seemed inevitable, he continued to fight it with such ability and 
tenacity that he prevented the raise. He has also been active in a sincere effort 
to improve the telephone service. He is a member of the Lawyers' Club and 
has been its president; president of the Yale Club, of the board of governors of 
the City Club, of the Central Council of the Tennessee Bar Association, of the 
local council for Tennessee for the American Bar Association, Sigma 
Chi fraternity, Phi Delta Phi (Corby Court Chapter, Yale), Memphis Country 
and Tennessee clubs. His valuable service as chairman of the law committee of 
the Chambmer of Commerce in 1919 was rewarded by his selection as a director 
of that body in 1920. He also is a director in the Layne & Bowler Company 
and in the William A. Webster Company, both highly successful manufacturing 
concerns of this city. Mr. Armstrong and Miss Irtna Waddell were married 
November 12, 1912. They have one child. Walter Preston Armstrong. Junior. 



684 




WALTER P. ARMSTR< >NG 



t,X5 



$. &. 3 one* 




IOMER K. JONES, Memphis, Tennessee, head of the largest 
public accounting business in the South, although born in 
Mississippi, is a member of an old Memphis family. His 
father, Millard Filmore Jones, was a member of the promi- 
nent firm of Miller. Jones & Company in Memphis prior to the 
Civil War. His mother was formerly Miss Martha Churchill. 
It was during a temporary stay in Tunica County, Mississippi, that Mr. Jones 
was born, November 28, 1881. The health of Memphis and the Mississippi 
Delia country then was not so good as it is now and, when the lad was only 
about one year old the family moved to the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, set- 
tling at West Plains, as an ideal point from the standpoint of health. It was 
there that Mr. Jones was reared and lived until he was old enough to go out 
into the world on his own account. He was educated in the public and high 
schools there and then took the course in the West Plains College. He special- 
ized there in accounting, taking special courses along that line under Professor 
Paul S. Freeman, one of the experts of the United States at that time, who had 
been a member of the faculty of the University of Michigan, but during that 
time was located in West Plains. He also took courses in expert accounting in 
the business colleges of St. Louis, Missouri, and in Memphis. His first work 
was for a small country newspaper, the West Plains Gazette, where he kept 
the books. That did not consume all of his time and during his spare hours he 
was a reporter for that publication. Then he went to Marked Tree, Arkansas, 
where he worked for Fuller Brothers and Goodwillie, who had large timber 
interests, saw mills and box factories there. At the end of the first year, he was 
promoted from bookkeeper to confidential man and placed in charge of the 
entire office affairs of the concerns. He remained there for two years, and then 
came to Memphis, which has been his home ever since. Here he went directly 
into the line of work in which he has risen to the top. He worked for two 
years for a firm of expert accountants and then opened an office on his own 
account under the firm name of Homer K. Jones & Company, under which 
name he still operates. He grew rapidly in that line. When the national war 
tax acts were passed, he was one of the first to realize what proper accounting 
meant to big business and specialized in the forms of accounting by which large 
taxpayers would be able to get all of the exemptions to which they were entitled 
by law. He has branch offices in a number of Southern cities and in Washing- 
ton. He is a member of the leading social and outing clubs of this section and 
especially fond of shooting, and for five years has been chairman of the State 
Board of Accountancy. Mr. Jones and Miss Martha Titus Edmonson were 
married June 17, 1908. They have one child. Miss Martha Jacqueline Jones. 



686 




HOMER K. IONICS 



687 



3. £. JBarntoell 




GgYSAAC HAYXE BARNWELL, one of the leading cotton 
buyers of Memphis, Tennessee, with branch firms in a num- 
ber of other cotton centers, was born in Columbia, South 
Carolina, February 21, 1864, the son of Edward H. and 
Harriet (Hayne) Barnwell, the Hayne family as well as the 
< G&c?c^ixS5-C53 ) Barnwell family being among the oldest and most distinguished 
in that old State. ( )ne of his maternal ancestors. Colonel Isaac Hayne of Revo- 
lutionary fame, known as the "Martyr Hayne." was hanged by the English in 
retaliation for the execution of Major Andre. Mr. Barnwell was educated at 
Porter Academy in Charleston, but left school at fourteen years of age to learn 
the cotton business in the office of Watson ds: Hill of Charleston, working during 
the winter and attending school during the spring and summer for several years. 
He worked his way through every branch of the cotton business and at the age 
of twenty-one accepted a position with Vincent & Hayne in Mississippi and 
the next year formed a partnership with H. DeL. Vincent and Frank B. Hayne 
under the firm name of Barnwell >S: Company at Yazoo City. Mississippi. This 
firm has been continuously in business since that time, although Messrs. Vincent 
and Hayne retired years ago. For a quarter of a century during the palmy days 
of Yazoo City as a long staple cotton center he was one of the leading figures 
in that big business, his firm standing second to none in the cotton belt. He was 
also senior member of the Barnwell & Barbour Fire Insurance Agency in 
Yazoo City, which interest he still retains. Mr. Barnwell is a 'member of the 
cotton buying firms of Barnwell Brothers of Greenwood, Mississippi, and of 
George W. Fease & Company, Memphis. Mr. Barnwell removed his headquar- 
ters to Memphis in 1909 when the boll weevil made such inroads into the cotton 
crop of the Yazoo City section. The firm at once took its natural position in the 
front ranks of the cotton firms of the city and has held it from that time. 
Mr. Barnwell's standing among his co-members of the Cotton Exchange was 
shown by his election to serve as president of that body during 1919 and it was 
(hiring his administration that the quarters were moved from the building on 
Second Street to a more central location on Front Street. He is a member of 
the Tennessee Club and the Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Barnwell and Miss 
Antoinette Cocks were married July 14. 1887. Their children are: Misses Net- 
tie C. and Sarah Williams, Frank Hayne and I. H. Barnwell, Junior. Three of 
the four members of the younger generation went to the front in the World 
War, both sons volunteering immediately upon declaration of war. Miss Barn- 
well served in the Y. M. C. A. work in Brest, France, while the elder son, Frank 
Hayne, was a second lieutenant in the First Division, A. E. F., and received the 
Distinguished Service Cross for his conspicuous gallantry at Soissons, wher.e 
he was wounded, and the younger, I. H.. Jr., served as a first lieutenant in the 
Eightieth Division in France. 



688 




I. II. BARNWELL 



!.S» 



a. e. %mm 




IC. LAXGE of Memphis, Tennessee, vice-president of the Chi- 
cago Mill & Lumber Company, was born at Bromberg, Ger- 
many, December 23, 1861. He came to this country in 1870. 
locating with his parents, Louis and Paulina Lange, at Mus- 
kegon, Michigan. He received a common school education 
and then was connected with lumbering operations in various 
capacities from common laborer to general superintendent. In 1898 he becamt 
a salesman for William E. Hill & Company of Kalamazoo, Michigan, manuiae- 
turers of saw mill machinery, being assigned to the Southern territory. In 1903 
he became connected with the Reichman-Crosby Company of Memphis as 
machinery salesman, and in June, 1904, became manager of the Marked Tree 
Lumber Company of Marked Tree, Arkansas, one of the Paepcke southern 
plants. In 1905 he removed to Blvtheville, Arkansas, to take charge of con- 
struction of the Chicago Mill & Lumber Company's new plant, consisting of 
saw mill, veneer plant and box factory. After completion of this plant, Mr. 
Lange continued in charge of its operation, and in addition supervised all of 
the extensive land, timber and manufacturing interests of the Chicago Mill & 
Lumber Company in Mississippi, Craighead and Poinsett counties, Arkansas. 
In 1919 he was relieved of the active supervision of the Blvtheville operations 
and placed in charge of the company's office in Memphis, giving special atten- 
tion to the purchase of additional timber lands in the Southern territory and the 
land interests of the company in the South. In 1893 Mr. Lange was married 
at Ludington, Michigan, to Miss Nellie May Wheeler, who passed away in 
October, 1917. Their only daughter, Margaret A. Lange, was married in 1916 
to Mr. P. M. Carpenter of Blvtheville, Arkansas, where the family now resides. 
In addition to his home in Blvtheville, Mr. Lange maintains a residence in 
Memphis. Mr. Lange has taken an active interest in all the civic improvements 
in Eastern Arkansas, having served as school director for ten years. He is now 
serving as one of the commissioners of the Blvtheville sewer district, and also 
is director and secretary of Mississippi County Damage District No 17, which 
is actively engaged in the reclamation of 170,000 acres of rich, alluvial lands. 
Mr. Lange in 1919 was elected president of the Southern Alluvial Land Associa- 
tion, which is advertising to the world the agricultural advantages and oppor- 
tunities in the alluvial region of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi since the 
completion of the Mississippi River levee system and subsequent drainage 
projects. Mr. Lange is recognized in the lumber industry as one of the leading 
authorities on timber lands. He has strong faith in the future development of 
the Mid-South, and believes the alluvial region especially is destined to become 
the garden spot of the world. 



690 




A. C. LANGE 



691 



Br. m &. Jf agin 




I II. 1. 1 AM ROBERT FAGIX. doctor of medicine and doctor 
of opthalmology, Memphis, Tennessee, was born on a planta- 
tion near Booneville, Mississippi, July 7, 1882, the son of 
William Martin and Pink (Hill) Fagin. His early training 
was in the Fagin Plantation schooltiouse. After having fin- 
ished at the Booneville High School, he spent seven years in 
school at Nashville, the first two in the George Peabody College for Teachers, 
where he received the teachers' degree. Then he entered the literary department 
of the University of Nashville and in 1905 began his medical training. In 1907 
he received the degree of bachelor of arts. From Yanderbilt University he 
received the degree of doctor of medicine in 1908. He was a member of the Pi 
Alpha Epsilon literary fraternity and the Phi Beta Pi medical fraternity. For 
many years he played football. He had been invited by his uncle. Doctor J. F. 
Hill of Memphis to be associated with him in the practice of the eye, ear, nose 
and throat. So, upon graduation, he attended the post-graduate schools and eye 
clinics of New York City. Since then he has been associated with his uncle in 
the practice of his chosen specialty, diseases of the eye. Doctor Fagin spent 
several months in 1912 in study and travel abroad. He visited the eye clinics 
of Naples, Rome. Vienna, Prague, Berlin. Paris and London. In 1914, he studied 
at the University of Colorado, earning there the degree of doctor of ophthal- 
mology in 1915. Outside of his office hours and hospital work. Doctor Fagin 
can be found almost every day at his pure-bred stock farm just outside the city 
limits on the Pigeon Roost Road, giving personal attention to his Raleigh strain 
of imported and American bred Jersey cattle, his Duroc-Jersey hogs, and his 
white Leghorn and Buff Orpington thoroughbred chickens. He takes great 
interest in the countv and Tri-State fairs, where he has won many ribbons. 
Peterson of New York built in Doctor Fagin's home on the South Parkway a 
magnificent residence pipe organ. This adds greatly to the pleasure of his 
friends, for several organ recitals are given every season. Doctor Fagin is 
chairman of one of the important committees of the Peabody School Civic Club. 
He is a member of the Temple Baptist Church. As a member of its finance 
committee, he was active in giving and soliciting funds for the erection of the 
new building. During one of the campaigns for money, Doctor Fagin gave on 
the lawn of his home, a chicken and vegetable picnic dinner, all home grown, to 
three hundred and fifty people, the entire proceeds going to the church-building 
fund. He is a member of the Chamber of. Commerce, Masonic fraternity, New- 
man's Athletic Club and a dozen leading medical societies. Doctor Fagin and 
Miss Harriet E. McGee, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. McGee of Baldwyn. 
Mississippi, were married April 2, 1916. They have two children, Margaret 
McGee and Harriet Roberta. 



692 




DR. W. R. F \<",l\ 



693 



J. ft. Mtlltngfjam 




jINCE coming to Memphis, twenty-five years ago, John T. 
Willingham has taken an active part in every movement tor 
making Memphis a greater city and a better place in which 
to live. He has done this with no desire or hope of reward, 
save that great satisfaction which comes to any good man from 
the knowledge that he has been of some service to his fellow 
man. And Memphis is greater and far prettier for his having been here. Mr. 
Willingham was born in Georgia August 30, 1861, and graduated from Hilliard 
Institute at Forsythe in his native state. He went to Chattanooga, where he 
engaged for a few years in manufacturing, and in 1895 came to Memphis where 
he established the Memphis Coffin Company, of which he has been the president 
and general manager since that time. It is recognized as one of the best organ- 
ized and ably conducted manufacturing plants in the country, and has been 
expanded by Mr. Willingham to where it is one of the largest in the land. It 
has also been a big paying institution, and Mr. Willingham has invested some of 
his surplus income from that in manufacturing enterprises in St. Louis, Mis- 
souri, and in Texarkana, Arkansas, all of which are conducted with the same 
rare skill and judgment. The income from these has afforded him a nice estate, 
but still he gives them the same careful attention. But Mr. Willingham is best 
known and most highly appreciated for his long and efficient connection with 
the park system. He and the late Robert Galloway, father of the park system, 
were intimate friends, and in 1906 Mr. Willingham was appointed a member 
of the Board of Park Commissioners with Mr. Galloway. From that time he 
has given the development of the system a great deal of his valuable time and 
good taste, until now the two major parks, the magnificent double driveway 
which connects them, and the minor squares throughout the city are unsurpassed 
in the United States and the admiration of every visitor no matter whence he 
comes. The taxpayers of Memphis wonder how all of this has been accom- 
plished with so small an expenditure of money, but if they will attend a meeting 
of the commission, with Mr. Willingham presiding, they will see that the park- 
system of Memphis has no tinge of politics in it, but is conducted just as a big 
private business. Mr. Willingham also served for a term as president of the 
Chamber of Commerce, during which time that organization made great progress 
and accomplished much for the growth of the city. For one year he served as 
president of the Tennessee Manufacturers Association, and takes an active part 
in all of the activities of that useful body. He is a member of the Tennessee 
Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the City Club and the Mud Lake Club, where 
he is one of the most accomplished shots on that unsurpassed duck marsh and 
one of the most successful of those who lure the wary bass to the fly at 
Mill Seat. 



694 




J. T. WILLINGHAM 



695 



Mm. ft. fterstetn 




IILLIAM ROBERT HERSTEIN. head of the Electric Supply 
Company, Memphis. Tennesee. one of the leading jobbers of 
the United States in electric supplies, and one of the most 
active factors in the city for its development and growth, is a 
native Tennessean. He was born in Chattanooga, December 2, 
1872, the son of Jacob and Ava ( Evans ) Herstein. The fam- 
ily moved to Nashville when he was but six weeks of age and it was there that 
he received his education and spent his early manhood. When seventeen years 
of age he went with the Capital Electric Company first in the capacity of office 
boy. He did almost everything that was to be done for the company, working 
up to the position~of assistant to the manager, when the concern went into the 
hands of a receiver. Mr. Herstein then went into the office of a Nashville law 
firm as stenographer, spent his spare time reading law and was admitted to the 
bar, but the pursuit of that profession did not appeal to him. Instead when he 
quit the law office, he went with the Western Union Telegraph Company, where 
he spent two years as a clerk, and then resigned to come to Memphis as book- 
keeper for the Electric Supply Company. This was in 1904 when he was 
thirty-two years of age. The business was not a large one at that time, but 
the keen mind of Mr. Herstein saw in it great possibilities for developing a 
magnificent jobbing and wholesale business in electric supplies, saw in Memphis 
the ideal location for a business of that kind and realized that he possessed in 
himself the ability to manage it. The head men in the General Electric Company 
soon saw that the new man in the Electric Supply Company was one who could 
be trusted with long credits and Memphis bankers concluded that they could 
safely lend him money with which to buy stock in the company. The net result 
was that in a short time he became the controlling stockholder and rapidly devel- 
oped a business second to none in this section of the country in its line. In 
1910 he organized the Memphis Electrical League, of which he is vice-president 
and which has done so much to stabilize the electric business in this section of 
the country. In 1919 he was chosen chairman of the central division of the 
National Electrical Supply Jobbers Association. He was a director in the 
Chamber of Commerce in 1913 and 1914 and was chairman of the committees 
whicn 'conducted. such successful membership drives for the chamber from 1913 to 
1916, inclusive. During the World War he was colonel of the Blue regiment in 
the drive for the third Liberty loan and active in all the patriotic and financial 
campaigns. Mr. Herstein is a Scottish Rite Mason. He and Miss Irene Cart- 
wright Brown of Newsom Station, Tennessee, were married October 15, 1902. 
This union has been blessed bv one child, Miss Miriam Evans Herstein. 



696 




WILLIAM R. HERSTEIN 



697 



M. J . Cratoforb 




(EST JAMES CRAWFORD, for more than sixty years a resi- 
dent of Memphis, Tennessee, during the major portion of 
that time a leader for all that promised for improvement in 
the material and moral welfare of the community, one of the 
city's most successful business men and head since its organi- 
zation of the greatest newspaper in the South, was born in 
Vicksburg, Mississippi, November 1, 1844. He was the son of Erasmus Strib- 
ling Crawford, who had moved from Staunton, Virginia, to Mississippi, latei 
moving to Memphis in 1859, where he died in 1865. Mr. Crawford's mother 
was formerly Miss Elvira Ann West of Christian County, Kentucky. After 
attending the schools in Vicksburg, Mr. Crawford went to the old Madison Col- 
lege near Canton, Mississippi, and then spent the term of 1859-'60 at the 
Western Military Institute in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a student with 
General Luke E. Wright at J. Wesley Armstrong's school in Memphis, when 
Tennessee cast her lot with the Confederacy. He promptly joined the Shelby 
Grays which became Company A, Fourth Tennessee Infantry, Strahl's Brigade, 
Cheatham's Division, Hardee's Corps, Army of the Tennessee — a company 
unsurpassed in Conderate annals for its casualties on the field of battle, for 
the promotions from its ranks, for its devotion to the cause, for its valor in 
making and its steadiness in sustaining a charge. Mr. Crawford returned to 
Memphis May 28, 1865, with little but an honorable discharge from a lost 
cause and the personal satisfaction of having performed faithfully a patriotic, 
arduous and dangerous duty. His first work was in a brokerage office. Then 
he became a classer and shipper of cotton, earning the reputation of being one 
of the best judges of cotton in the Memphis market. He rented and operated 
for a time old Gill cotton compress on the river front. In 1874 he, Mr. William 
B. Galbreath and Mr. Jephtha M. Fowlkes composed the cotton factoring firm 
of W. B. Galbreath & Company. In 1879 he withdrew from that firm and 
became the junior member of Mallory, Crawford & Company, which during the 
twenty years that he was connected with it was one of the strongest wholesale 
grocery and cotton factoring firms in the South. In 1889, Mr. Crawford and 
several associates, as the outcome of a local political condition, began the publi- 
cation of The Memphis Commercial, making the sixth newspaper in the city. 
Mr. Crawford has been president of the company ever since. Under his direc- 
tion it absorbed the other two morning papers and as The Commercial Appeal 
has become one of the leading journals of the United States. He is a member 
of the Tennessee and Memphis Country Clubs and served two terms, following 
1885 as president of the Cotton Exchange. Mr. Crawford and Miss Annie 
Thompson were married, November 11, 1874. Their children are: Erasmus S. ; 
Miss Kate, now Mrs. Lovick P. Miles, and Miss Marianne. 



698 




W. |. CRAWFORD 



,/n 



g . W. ftapg 




AMES WALKER HAYS, for the past thirty years business 
manager of The Commercial Appeal, Memphis. Tennessee, who 
has added so much toward making that newspaper the greatest 
in the South and one of the strongest in the United States, is 
a native of Memphis. He was born December 7, 1857, on the 
corner of LaRose Street and Walker Avenue, the son of 
Andrew* Jackson and Elizabeth McLemore (Walker) Hays. His ancestors 
were conspicuous in the early days of the State, standing always bodly for its 
progress and growth. One of them was owner of one-third interest in the 
original city of Memphis, and both Walker and McLemore Avenues are named 
for them. His grandfather, Samuel J. Hays, was a ward of Andrew Jackson; 
was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New 
York ; had a distinguished career as a general in the Mexican War and was one 
of the pioneer settlers of Madison County, Tennessee, where he was a large 
planter and slave-owner. Naturally he named his son for his guardian, Andrew- 
Jackson, and gave him every possible advantage in the way of an education. 
A. J. Hays and Howell E. Jackson, later a justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, were graduated together in the law and intended being partners 
in the practice of that profession, but General Hays wanted his son to take up 
the affairs of the family. He married the daughter of Doctor James Monroe 
Walker, a Yirginia gentleman who settled first at LaGrange, Tennessee, and 
then came to Memphis at an early date, where he was a leading physician until 
his death during the Civil War. Mr. Hays' mother attended the Magevney 
School in Court Square and finished her education in Nashville. Her mother 
was Mary McLemore, daughter of John C. McLemore. who came to Tennessee 
from North Carolina when Tennessee was Eranklin County of that State, was 
the official surveyor of the boundaries for the new state, an intimate friend of 
Andrew Jackson and purchaser of General Jackson's one-third interest in the 
city of Memphis. Mr. McLemore was one of the largest property owners in 
the United States. He went to California on horseback and acquired large 
domains there. In addition to his interest in the original city of Memphis he 
owned hundreds of acres in what uow is the city. Mr. Hays was educated in 
the private schools of Memphis and in 1879 entered the employ of Thomas H. 
Allen & Company, cottor. factors, as bookkeeper. In 1881 he went to work for 
The Commercial Appeal in the same capacity, in 1900 becoming business manager 
and secretary of the company. His tireless energy, absolute honesty and business 
capacity are reflected in the growth of the paper since that time. Mr. Hays and 
Miss Mary Veronica Bolster were married November 16, 1887. Their children 
are. 1. W., Jr.; Miss Mary; Dennis Smith; Frank Middleton; Miss Mildred, 
now Mrs. Bethel Edrington ; Andrew Jackson, and George Bolster. 



"00 




\Y. HAYS 



rui 



P. i. Cofjn 




jERNARD L. COHN, president and publisher of the News 
Scimitar, was born in Memphis, Tennessee, July 6, 1887, the 
son of Harry and Sarah Colin. He received his education in 
the public schools of Memphis, Betts Academy, Stamford, 
Connecticut, and Columbia University, New York City, where 
he was graduated in 1909. As a boy the newspaper business 
appealed to him and during the Spanish-American War his parents allowed him 
to sell newspapers. Though only eleven years old he felt a thrill in giving the 
people the news of the day, a thrill that later developed so strongly that he 
decided to make the newspaper business his life work. During vacations at 
Columbia University he worked as a reporter on the New York Times and the New 
York Journal, getting an experience that made his later progress very rapid. On 
his return to Memphis he joined the repertorial staff of the News Scimitar where 
his industry and ability to make and keep friends soon attracted the attention 
of the editors with the result that he was made Sunday editor. He made 
good, but his career in the editorial department was to be short lived. During 
one of the stormy periods which newspapers encounter there came a day when 
the men financially interested were worried. An Eastern capitalist was sum- 
moned to give advice. He looked over the property and talked with the men 
in charge and the men in their employ. His verdict surprised no one more than 
it did Bernard Cohn. "I want you to put that young man in the business office. 
If I am not mistaken he can solve your troubles," he declared. Mr. Cohn 
objected on the ground that he wanted to remain in the editorial department. 
Finally, however, he did agree to go into the business office for a period of 
six months. He began in the advertising department and in six months became 
advertising manager. Again he made good and within a year he was made busi- 
ness manager. He at once went about his new duties in a manner that showed 
he had very clear and determined ideas about the business management of a 
newspaper. He was one of the first in the South to advocate putting the circula- 
tion of newspapers on a strictly cash basis. When he issued orders that auto- 
matically cut off several thousand subscribers, some of the old school prophesied 
disaster but the balance sheets at the end of the year showed a saving of more 
than $50,000. The crisis was over. In 1920 he was elected general manager. 
In February, 1921, Mr. Cohn increased his holdings and was elected president 
and publisher. Mr. Cohn is a member of the Rex Club, the Young Men's 
Hebrew Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis Club, the Ridge- 
way Country Club, the University Club and the Newman Athletic Club. He 
married Miss Louise Halle, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Halle, October 28, 
1914. They have one child, Harry Cohn II. They live at 249 Avalon Place. 



702 




B. L. COHN 



703 



George jHorris 




EORGE MORRIS, editor of the Mews-Scimitar, Memphis, 
Tennessee, one of the leading newspaper men of the South, 
was born in Fayette County, Tennessee, January 30, 1883. the 
son of Walter and Mary Etta ( Parker ) Morris. He grew 
up on the farm at Laconia of his father, who for many years 
has been and still is one of the county's most substantial citi- 
zens, a leader in his section in all public movements. Mr. Morris was educated 
in the common schools of Fayette County and then went to Union University 
at Jackson, Tennessee, where he was a member of the class of 1906. During 
his youth he worked for a time for the Southern Express Company at Carrollton 
and Greenwood. Mississippi, and was probably the youngest agent that that 
company had during the time that he was in the former city. However, he had 
an ambition to enter the newspaper field and in 1908 secured a position with 
the Jackson (Tennessee) Whig. He remained with that publication for two 
years and then came to Memphis as a reporter on the Commercial Appeal. For 
the next four years he was one of the best street men that that paper ever had, 
developing rapidly until in a short time he was the leading staff man on the 
paper. He not only proved himself a good getter of news and able to portray 
the exact facts, but developed a style of writing which was most agreeable. 
He had a vein of humor which sparkled brilliantly wherever there was a chance 
for it and always free from any sting. He was yet equally capable in handling 
a serious story. In 1914 Air. Morris went from Memphis to Nashville to 
become associate editor of the Nashville Banner, where he added much to the 
standing of that old publication. Two years later the Banner sent him to Wash- 
ington as its special correspondent at the national capital. During the same 
time he was secretary to Senator John K. Shields. In 1917 he returned to Mem- 
phis on the editorial staff of the News Scimitar, and the following year he 
became the managing editor; in January, 1921, he was made editor. To that 
position he brought with him a thorough training in all branches of editorial 
work, a wide general acquaintance in Memphis gained as a reporter, and in 
Mississippi during his residence there, and intimate knowledge of the politics 
and public men of the State and the nation. To these were added his delightful 
personality and his happy faculty of making and holding friends. The effect of 
his being placed in charge of the editorial department of the News Scimitar was 
apparent from the day that he took charge. He put the paper in close touch with 
; the life and aspirations of the community and from that date it has been a strong 

<"•«. factor in every movement for better conditions. He is a member of St. John's 
Methodist Church and the Rotary Club. Mr. Morris and Miss Karen McGehee 
of Jackson were married in July. 1 ( '17. They have one child, George Morris, 
Tunior. 



•704 




i ,1 < iRCil' Mi iKKIS 



7i)5 



A. C. iHajor 




(SAMUEL CHESTER MAJOR, Memphis, Tennessee, for the 
past fifteen years one of the leading dealers in lumber in this 
section of the country and recognized as one of the most sub- 
stantial men in that line in the United States, is a native 
of Indiana, having been born February 10, 1865, on a 
farm in Clinton County in that State, the son of William Car- 
rick and Margaret (Barr) Major. He received his early education in the coun- 
try schools of his county, and until he became of age, he worked on the farm 
of his father. Preferring a business career to life on the farm, Mr. Major made 
his first venture in the commercial world as a partner in the furniture business in 
Kirklin, Indiana. This partnership did not prove a success financially, but from 
it. Mr. Major gained much in the way of experience and a knowledge of the 
shoals which were to be avoided in navigating the commercial seas which proved 
in his future life of more worth to him than the amount of money that he had 
lost in the first business. Then Mr. Major found the line in which he has proven 
such a signal success, for in 1887 he went into the lumber business, to which 
his main industry and investments have been confined ever since. His first con- 
nection with that line of enterprise was with W. H. Guirl & Brother in Girklin. 
He remained with that firm for three years, and then went to Indianapolis, 
Indiana, where he worked for five years with H. C. Long, and then for the same 
length of time with Hall & Frisbee of Jamestown, New York, still in the lum- 
ber business. In 1900, Mix Major became interested with the Steele & Hilliard 
Lumber Company of St. L\ouis. Missouri, where he remained for four years. 
At the end of that time, he came to Memphis and went into the lumber busi- 
ness alone under the firm name of S. C. Major & Company, dealing in the hard- 
woods of this section of the country. From the time that he formed the firm, 
it took high rank for integrity and efficiency, and it has grown steadily until for 
a number of years past it has had a deserved reputation second to none in the 
country both for the volume and the reliability of its business. In addition to 
being sole owner of the firm of S. C. Major & Company, Mr. Major is presi- 
dent of the Major, Cromwell Lumber Company; secretary and treasurer of the 
McGraw, Curran Lumber Company ; a director in the DeSoto Hardwood Floor- 
ing Company and the L. D. Murrelle Lumber Company. He is a past president 
of the Memphis Lumbermen's Club, and is a member of the board of trustees 
for the National Wholesale Lumber Dealers Association. He is a member of 
the Chamber of Commerce and Memphis Country Club and was the first presi- 
dent of the Colonial Country Club. Mr. Major and Miss Georgie Bell Tidwell 
were married October 27, 1916. They live at the Hotel Chisca and spend their 
time during the summer months at eastern resorts. 



706 




S. C. MAJOR 



707 



€. Jf . Mod 




HIE Honorable Edmond Favor Xoel, Lexington, Mississippi, 
who has served his State so ably in many public positions, was 
born in Holmes County, seven miles south of Lexington, 
March 4, 1856, the son of Leland and Margaret (Sanders) 
Xoel. After having finished the common schools of Holmes 
County, he went to Louisville, Kentucky, where he finished the 
course and the high school course and then took up the study of law in the office 
of his uncle. Major D. W. Sanders, a distinguished Confederate veteran. At 
the age of twenty-one years, he returned to Lexington and was admitted to the 
bar. taking high rank from the start, both in his profession and in the hearts of 
his people. This latter was shown by the fact that when but twenty-four years 
of age they sent him to the State Legislature, where he was the youngest mem- 
ber of that body in 1882 and 1883. In 1887 he was elected state's attorney for 
the district composed of Holmes, Carroll, Montgomery, Webster, Choctaw, 
Attala and LeFlore counties. By reason of having two courts in Carroll County, 
there were sixteen terms each year for the district attorney, and he missed hut 
one in the four years of his administration. He was elected State senator in 
1895, 1899 and in 1919. In 1898 he served as captain of Company K. Second 
Mississippi Infantry in the Spanish-American War. In 1907 he was elected 
governor of the State and served for four years, devoting most of his energies 
to giving the State a business administration by which the expenditures should 
come within the income of the State. In this he succeeded for three years and 
would have done so for the last year, but for the fact that $600,000 was 
expended for educational buildings. He drafted the original constitutional 
amendments for the elective judiciary and for electing all county officers every 
fourth year; wrote the primary election law; drafted many reforms in the 
criminal statutes of the State ; urged consolidation of the chancery and circuit 
courts, and the depository act by which State and county funds are kept at 
interest in banks. During his incumbency he entertained Roosevelt, Taft and 
Bryan at different times ; and, at one time, by special invitation the governors 
of Washington. South Dakota and New Hampshire were his guests. In turn 
he was entertained at the White House by Presidents Roosevelt and Taft, and 
by Woodrow Wilson while governor of New Jersey. Governor Xoel is a mem- 
ber of the Baptist Church, the Mystic Shrine, the Woodmen of the World, and 
the Knights of Pythias. He , was married first to Miss Loula Hoskins, June 4, 
1890, and after her death, he and Mrs. Alice Tye Neilson were married Sep- 
tember 12, 1905. He has no child, hut takes just pride in Mrs. Xoel's two sons. 
Captain Halbert Neilson, serving with the American Army of Occupation at 
Coblenz, Germany, and Edwin T. Neilson, now law student at the University of 
Mississippi. 



708 




E. F. NOEL 



709 



. J. $re*cott 




WILLIAM JUNIUS PRESCOTT, Memphis, Tennessee, entered 
the coal business when he was thirteen years of age, and, solely 
as the result of his own industry, capacity and integrity, has 
worked up to where he is heavily interested in two of the larg- 
est coal companies, one wholesale and one retail, in the Mid- 
South, and recognized as one of the best posted men in the 
country on all questions entering into the coal business. Mr. Prescott was born 
in Memphis, September 25, 1875, the son of John Martin and Annie (Quinlan) 
Prescott. He attended the public schools of the city until he was thirteen years 
of age and then entered the business world as office boy for the Pittsburgh Coal 
Company, and he has spent his entire life in that line of industry. After three 
years with the Pittsburgh Coal Company, Mr. Prescott went with the J. D. Bark- 
dull Coal Company, where he spent two years as yard clerk. Then he went with 
the fine old firm of Hunt & Brother, in charge first of the books for their retail 
coal business. He put in sixteen years with that firm, gradually becoming a 
stockholder and during the latter part of that time secretary and treasurer of 
the business. At the end of that time, Mr. Prescott and associates bought out 
the firm of Hunt & Brother and formed the Hunt-Berlin Coal Company, which 
did both a wholesale and retail coal business until 1919. when they consolidated 
the wholesale branch of the business with the Memphis Coal Company, retain- 
ing only the retail portion of it for the Hunt-Berlin Coal Company. Mr. Pres- 
cott is vice-president of both companies, devoting most of his energies to the 
wholesale end of the business. His ability in the general coal line is attested by 
the fact that since 1917 he has been a director in the American Wholesale Coal 
Association. He is a member of the Colonial Country Club, of which he was 
vice-president from 1918 to 1920. He has been first vice-president and twice 
a director of the Chamber of Commerce, and for many years one of the most 
active members of that organization in promoting every movement that would 
be of benefit to the community. He was the first president of the Advertising 
Club, in 1918; is a member of the Rotary Club, in which he has served as a 
director; of the Memphis Country Club; an Odd Fellow; a Woodman of the 
World; a member of the Young Men's Christian Association; both a Scottish 
Rite and a Knight Templar Mason, and a member of the executive committee of 
Al Chymia Shrine, which is to erect a memorial to the late O. K. Houck. He 
was captain of a team in several of the Liberty loan drives, and active in all of 
them, as well as in the campaigns for funds for the Red Cross and Baptist 
Memorial Hospital. He is a director in the Guaranty Bank & Trust Company ; 
J. T. Hinton & Son, Incorporated; the Tri-State Fair and the Memphis Freight 
Bureau. Mr. Prescott and Miss Ida LaCroix were married October 12, 1904. 



710 




W. I. PRESCOTT 



711 



polling ;i>tt)lep 




ROLLING SIBLEY, for many years active in all movements for 

B the advancement of Memphis along civic and religious lines, 

Jay is also a most successful business man. He was born in 
(Sw Augusta, Georgia, August 20, 1873, the son of Robert P. and 
Susie W. (Boiling) Sibley. On his paternal side he is a 
lineal descendant of John Sibley of St. Albans, England, who 
came over with the Winthrop Fleet and settled in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1629. 
Mr. Sibley's paternal grandfather, Josiah Sibley, moved from Massachusetts to 
Augusta in 1821 and died there in 1888. Mr. Sibley's grandfather on his moth- 
er's side, the late Robert P. Boiling, of the old Petersburg, Virginia, family by 
that name, came to Memphis in 1859, and lived here until his death in 1882. 
Upon the completion of his education at Richmond Academy, in Augusta, Mr. 
Sibley came to Memphis. Pie worked first for the Peters Cracker Company, 
beginning June 28, 1889, just three days after having received his diploma. Two 
years later he went with the Continental National Bank, where he spent seven 
years. He was with the Bank of Commerce for a year and then with the State 
National Bank for five years. Although he was occupying a responsible position 
with a bright future in the banking line, Mr. Sibley became attracted to the life 
insurance business, and, in May, 1904, he became district agent for the National 
Life Insurance Company of Vermont. His success was so marked that he 
attracted the attention of other companies, and, in January, 1908, he accepted the 
general agency for the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, which position 
he has filled to date with great credit to himself, service to his policy holders and 
fidelity to his company. He has served since 1912 as a member of the executive 
committee of the Penn Mutual Agency Association. At the convention in 
Chicago in 1911 he was elected vice-president of the National Association of 
Life Underwriters. Later he served as secretary of that association for a term 
and as a member of the executive council. He organized the Memphis Life 
Underwriters Association and was its president in 1910 and 1911. Mr. Sibley 
was a director in the Mercantile National Bank during its entire existence, and at 
present is a director in the Liberty Savings Bank & Trust Company, in the 
Industrial Bank & Trust Company and the Tri-State Fair Association. He has 
been a director in the Y. M. C. A. since 1907, and was its president in 1915. He 
united with the church early in life and is a steward in St. John's Methodist 
Church. lie was active during the World War in all of the government 
drives. He is a thirty-second degree Mason, Knight Templar, Shriner, Rotarian. 
and member of the Memphis Country, Tennessee and City Clubs, the Chamber 
of Commerce and the Red Cross. Mr. Sibley married Miss Erie Beasley of 
LaGrange, Tennessee, September 17, 1903. They have only one child, Miss 
Dorothy L. Sibley. 



712 




B( >LLING SIBLEY 



713 



#tto Zafm 




jTTO ZAI1X, president of S. C. Toof & Company. Memphis, 
Tennessee, of international reputation as a binder of books 
and one of the most artistic master printers of the United 
States, was born March 27, 1856, in Berka, Thuringia. die- 
son of Christian and Sidonie ( Rhodeman) Zahn. He attended 
the public schools from 1861 to 1864. had private tutors for 
the next two years and spent the two years following that in the high school. 
At the age of fourteen years, his father apprenticed him, after the custom of that 
time and country, to a bookbinder. T. A. Francke. of Arnsladt. He was made a 
journeyman bookbinder in 1873, and the following year started a career of 
rambling which took him over a large portion of the world. He went first to 
Brazil, where he stopped for a time in Para and then went to Rio de Janeiro. 
Thence he worked through the Antilles, visiting St. Thomas, Haiti and Cuba, 
passing thence over to Mexico. There he was stricken with one of the common 
tropical fevers, and left for Liverpool on a sailing vessel. From Liverpool, he 
returned home for examination, at nineteen years of age, for militarv service 
under the universal training law. Never of physique comparable to his men- 
tality, he was pronounced unfit for service and hence free to go and come as 
he pleased. Basil. Switzerland, in 1876 found him among her many highly 
skilled workmen. However, the wanderlust still had possession of him and he 
divided the year 1877 between Turin and Rome. With the beginning of the 
following winter he turned his face to the frozen north and crossing the St. Gott- 
hardt on foot in the heavy snows, worked for a time in Lucerne. Switzerland, and 
spent the latter half of 1878 in Paris, France. Pursuing his vocation all the 
while, be returned home, worked for a time in Weimar and then in Hamburg. 
Then he took a flying trip to Egypt, visited Cairo and shed a tear at Alexandria 
for the greatest loss there of the world's accumulated knowledge. Thence he 
went to London, where he was employed in the famous Zaehnsdorff Bindery, 
then conducted by the elder Zaehnsdorff. After a year in that establishment, he 
had acquired first-hand the art of binding which the main binderies of three 
continents possessed and in 1882 won first prize in a big London binding exhibit. 
It was in cash and he used it to come to America. He worked for a time in 
New York. Philadelphia and Newark, and in 1884 came to Memphis, where he 
went to work for S. C. Toof & Company, in which firm he rose through all posi- 
tions until 1918. when he succeeded Mr. Bates as president. He took grand 
prize for binding at the St. Louis World's Fair. Books came to Memphis from 
the principal cities of the world for Mr. Zahn to bind. He attributes his good 
health to strict dietary regulations, physiological exercises and horseback riding, 
being one of two gentlemen remaining in Memphis who enjoy that diversion. 



714 




( >TT< ) ZAHN 



•15 



C ?|. Caratoap 




111-'. Honorable Thaddeus II. Caraway, Jonesboro, Arkansas, 

T. une of the leading lawyers of Northeastern Arkansas, former 
mh member of the congress from the First district, member of the 
M/^/ United Stales Senate and planter, has been a very prominent 
figure in the public affairs of that section of the State since 
very soon after he moved there from Tennessee. Mr. Cara- 
way was born at Spring Hill. Stoddard County. Missouri. October 17. 1871. the 
son of Tolbert F. and Mary Ellen Caraway. Mr. Caraway moved from Mis- 
souri to Clay County, Arkansas, at twelve years of age and thence to Tennessee 
and received his education at Dickson College, where he was graduated with 
the degree of bachelor of arts. He was admitted to the bar in < Isceola^ Arkan- 
sas, in 1899, having returned to Arkansas in 1893 and located at Lake City. 
There he practiced law and then moved to Jonesboro, the county seat. There 
his rise in his profession and in the esteem of the people was rapid. In 1908 
they elected him prosecuting attorney for the second judicial district and his 
conduct of the office was such that he was re-elected in 1910 for another term of 
two years. He was especially vigorous in his prosecution of homicides and the 
net result to the county of his administration of the office of prosecuting attor- 
ney was that there was a far less tendency to commit crime, especially murder. 
However, his development in his chosen profession was by no means confined 
to the practice of criminal law. His mind went naturally to the controlling point 
in any case, and it was but a short time after he moved to Jonesboro before he 
was classed with the best at the bar and was connected with practically all of 
the important cases there for years. A ready debater, a delightful and effective 
speaker and a close student, he was equally at home and equallv efficient in all 
branches of the law. a wise counselor and a brilliant trial lawyer. Honest and 
fearless, neither shielding friend nor persecuting enemy, he left the office of 
prosecuting attorney respected by all in the large district. He aspired to go to 
the national congress and at the election in the fall of 1912 was elected to rep- 
resent the first district of Arkansas to succeed the Honorable R. B. Macon, as 
a member of the Sixty-third Congress. He was re-elected to the Sixtv-fourth. 
Sixty-fifth and Sixty-sixth congresses, the last term expiring March 4. 1921. 
As a member of the lower house of the congress, Mr. Carway took and active 
part in the broad affairs of the nation as well as looking attentively after the 
interests of his constituents. During the World War, he was a staunch sup- 
porter of President Wilson and it was largely upon that record that the people 
of Arkansas elected him to the senate in 1920. He and Miss Hattie W'vatt of 
Tennessee were married Februarv 5, 1902. Thev have three sons. 



716 




T. II. I'AKAW AY 



717 



Jf . OT. Probe 





REDERICK WILLIAM BRODE; for more than halt a cen- 

F. tury a leader in business and social circles in Memphis, Ten- 
(fcM nessee. was born in DelitzsH, Saxony, August 14. 1843. the 
(Sv son of John Frederick and Frederika (Ritter) Brode. As a 
youth he was highly educated both in private and public 
schools. When but ten years of age he came with his father's 
family to New Orleans and in 1859 moved to Memphis. His first work here 
was as a bookkeeper and in 1868 he became one of the pioneer brokers of the 
city. Later he was the senior member of the firms of Brode & Cooper, and 
Brode, Mclntyre & Company, the latter specializing in handling large consign- 
ments of sugar and molasses. After a short time he organized the firm of 
F. W. Brode & Company, dealers and exporters in cotton seed products of 
which he has been the active head ever since and which has an international 
reputation for integrity and efficiency. Me has specialized since 1875 in cotton 
seed products. He is one of the three men who were instrumental in forming in 
1897 the Interstate Cotton Seed Crushers Association, which has such an 
influence on that industry and which now has an international reputation. 
Mr. E. M. Durham of Yicksburg, Mississippi, first president of the association, 
and Mr. Louis K. Bell of New York City, were the other two. In connection 
with his export business and also for pleasure, Mr. Brode has made many- 
trips abroad, visiting England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland. Austria and France. 
He is a veteran Mason, a member of Memphis Lodge Xo. 118 and since 1879, 
a trustee of the lodge. He is a charter member of the Tennessee Club, and 
member of the Memphis Country Club, the City Club, the Chamber of Com- 
merce and the Memphis Merchants Exchange. After having been a director 
and vice-president of the latter body, he was elected president in 1898. As an 
appreciation for his interest in the exchange, his friends had Carl Gutherz 
paint Mr. Brode in oil and paid him the compliment of having his as the only 
likeness of a living member hung in its hall. He is also a member of the 
New York Produce Exchange, and the Seed Oil and Cake Trade Association 
of Liverpool. Mr. Brode and Miss Dora Bascom Simmons were married July 
8, 1875. in the Central Baptist Church. They had six children: Misses Marie 
Louise, Frederika May and Dorothy Demetria. and Julian Lafayette, Fred- 
erick W.. Jr., and Ben Dee. Mr. Frederick W., Jr.. died in 1904, and they also 
lost a baby daughter. While Mr. Brode was born in a land to which his adopted 
country was an enemy during the World War, there was never a suggestion of 
doubt as to his loyalty and patriotism during that time. He was active with his 
time and liberal with his means in all the campaigns that were made during that 
time for the various war causes. In fact, ever since he has been a resident 
of Memphis, Mr. Brode has been one of its most liberal citizens for all worthv 
causes. 



: 18 




\\ . BR< >DE 



719 



Cfjasf. ft. Prouglj 




HARI.ES HILLMAN BROUGH, educator, student of eco- 
nomics and sociology, historian, orator and former governor of 
Arkansas, was born in Clinton, Mississippi, July 9, 1876, the 
son of Charles Milton and Flora M. ( Thompson ) B rough. 
He was given a thorough education, for. after having received 
his degree of bachelor of arts from the Mississippi College at 
Clinton, he entered Johns Hopkins University, where he spent three years, 
receiving the degree of bachelor of philosophy in 1898. During the scholastic 
year 1897-98, he was a fellow in economics at Johns Hopkins. Both Baylor 
University and the University of Arkansas conferred upon him in 1917. the 
honorary degree of doctor of laws. Upon the receipt of his degree from Johns 
Hopkins, he was chosen professor of philosophy, economics and historv in 
Mississippi College and spent three years there, resigning in 1902 to enter the 
law department of the University of Mississippi from which he received the 
degre; of bachelor of laws in 1903. During 1903 and 1904, he was professor 
of history and philosophy in Hillman College at Clinton, Mississippi, and in the 
fall of the latter year he went to Arkansas to fill the chair of economics and 
sociology in the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. His mind was too 
active to be confined to teaching, and he began a study of the needs of the 
State, especially from an economic standpoint. When the campaign for gov- 
ernor opened in 1916 he cast his hat into the ring, much to the amusement of 
the old-time politicians. But when the results of his close study of the needs 
of the State went to the people through his matchless oratorv and charming 
personality, the people saw that a new era was dawning and he was an easy 
victor. There was no trouble about his re-election in 1918. Upon assuming 
the chair, he moved his residence from Fayetteville to Little Rock, the capital. 
He also served a term ;'s national president of the Tau Kappa Alpha honorary 
debating society, with offices in Indianapolis, Indiana, and from 1916 to 1918 
was the president of the Southern Sociological Congress. He is a member of 
the Beta Theta Pi of Johns Hopkins; a Knight Templar; a Shriner; a Knight 
of Pythias; a Woodman; a Woodman of the World; a Modern Woodman; 
an Eagle; an Elk; a 1'retorian; a member of the Tribe of Ben Hur: and a 
member of the Knights & Ladies of Security. He is president of the Lmited 
States Good Roads Association for 1920-21. Volumes III. \, \'II and YIII 
of the Mississippi Historical Association, and Volume I of the Arkansas 
Historical Association contain many of his historical writings. Since 1898 
he has been one of the most entertaining and instructive Chautauqua lecturers. 
He and Miss Annie Wade Roark of Franklin. Kentucky, were married Tune 
17. 1908. L T pon completing his service as governor, he took up a four-vear 
contract with the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce. 



720 




(II \kl.KS II. BR( )UGH 



721 



M. €. Cobtngton 




1 1 LI. I AM THOMAS COVINGTON, planter. Belen. Missis- 
sippi, and one of the most useful men in Quitman County, 
was born in Como, Mississippi, February 12, 1861, the son of 
William Jack and Lucinda (Daniel) Covington. His father 
had moved from North Carolina to Mississippi and his mother 
had come from Virginia, where she was a member of the 
family to which the Honorable John \Y. Daniel, U. S. S., belonged. His father 
rode with General Forrest, even to the last stand at Selma, Alabama, and 
returning home from Gainesville with his parole, moved in 1867 from Como to 
Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, hopelessly broken in health from the effects 
of the campaigns. The family grew up some four miles west of Enid, far 
from prosperous. Mr. W. T. Covington worked in the field and. when the 
crops did not require his attention, in the forests as a tie maker. The broad- 
axe and the sledge developed in him a breadth of shoulders, a depth of chest 
and a powerful physique which have been able to withstand the hard work 
that he has put upon his constitution since that time. At the age of twenty- 
three years, he went to work for the firm of Thompson & McLeod, general 
merchants at Enid. Mr. McLeod appreciated his ability, crude although it was 
at that time, and advanced the money that it could be made more efficient by 
an education, which Mr. Covington took in Leddin's Business College in 
Memphis the following year. Returning to Enid, he kept the firm's books at 
$12.50 per month, and at the end of the first year had to his account S150 
which he credited to the old account which his father owed the firm. In 1886 
Mr. McLeod sent him to the Delta to manage a plantation which he owned 
on Coklwater River, five miles below where Marks now is located. Within 
three years he was chosen one of the five supervisors of Quitman County 
and so sound was his judgment, so sterling his honesty and so capable his 
administration of the affairs of the county that in 1891 he was chosen to fill 
the consolidated office of clerk for both the Circuit and Chancery courts of 
Quitman County. He held those offices for sixteen years, and Quitman County 
considers herself fortunate to this day on account of the accuracy with which 
her records were kept for that long period. He served in the Legislature from 
1911 to 1915. aiding in passing the Torreyson land-title act, the bank-guar- 
antee act and in repealing the old Tallahatchie drainage act. He was elected 
to the State Senate in 1918, where he supported woman's suffrage, and secured 
the passage of many local drainage, road and school laws. He owns a beautiful 
plantation near Belen and is interested in many local enterprises. Lie is a 
Mason, a Woodman of the World and an Elk. Mr. Covington and Miss Jessie 
Hayward of Coldwater, Mississippi, were married November 27, 1896. They 
have lost one child and have four living: John N. ; William T., Jr.: Hayward. 
and Jessie Stark Covington. 



722 




W. T. C< »VINGT< IN 



72$ 



Wl M. Canale 




jHILIP M. CANALE, lawyer, Memphis, Tennessee, was born 
in that city, April 25, 1888. the son of Michael and Theresa 

PWJ« Canale. He attended the public schools of Memphis, the 
\M1 Christian Brothers' College, where he took a number of medals 
for oratory and impromptu speaking, the Catholic University 
of America, and Vanderbilt University, ranking high in both 
his studies and athletics in each university. As a child he spent several months 
in Italy with .his parents. Mr. Canale worked three years for the Standard 
Oil Company, then studied law and began the practice of his profession in 
1910 in the office of Lehman, Gates is; Lehman, itself one of the best of law 
schools. Later he practiced alone for a time and in 1918 be and Mr. J. E. Holmes 
formed the firm of Holmes & Canale. which from that date has ranked as one 
of the strongest law firms in the Mid-South. Mr. Canale was elected a mem- 
ber of the City Board of Education in 1912, being probably the youngest man 
ever to have held that office. It was upon his initiative that the cap and gown 
was introduced as the graduating costume in the city high school, putting rich 
and poor on the same basis. It remained for him in later vears to relieve a 
very strained situation in the matter of salaries for teachers in the citv schools. 
Every one agreed that the teachers should have more money. Xo one knew 
how to secure it. The Memphis bar had held for years that the school tax levy 
authorized by the State general assembly was a maximum. Air. Canale, as 
attorney for the committee on education of the Chamber of Commerce, secured 
a ruling from the Supreme Court that the levies stated in the act are minima 
provided that the aggregate of them does not exceed the maximum rate hxed 
in the act and that one department is not robbed for another. This prevented 
the recent impending strike of the teachers. Another of his important public 
cases was when, as counsel for the office-holders, he was instrumental in 
having the Supreme Court declare unconstitutional the fee act of 1917. He is 
attorney for the Tennessee Manufacturers' Association and for the Memphis 
Retail Merchants Association. In the latter capacity he was prominent in 
the settlement of the retail clerks strike, and his success in that affair was 
so signal that when twenty-four hundred clerks struck in St. Louis he was 
summoned there, and after three weeks effected a settlement between the 
clerks and the merchants. He was active in the organization of the Liberty 
Savings Bank and is its attorney. In the organization of the Memphis Packing 
Corporation his firm introduced into the South the plan of issuing stock of 
non-par value. During the war he was a four-minute man on all the loan 
campaign committees and secretary of the local council of Xational Defense. 
Mr. Canale and Miss Martha Doyle were married September 18. 1912. Their 
children are: Louise Therese, Ellen Elizabeth and Phil M., Jr. 



724 





















IT 


>-^»v 1 


r 




— 


^- jL 




iH 




<** 













I'. M. CANALE 



72? 



1. ft. Jfltpptn 




AMES HARRISON FLIPPIX, merchant, banker, and busi- 
ness man, Covington, Tennessee, was born October 2, 1865, 
in Fayette County, Tennessee, the oldest child of James 
Armistead and Bettie Eloise (Dupree) Flippin, who had been 
[<£) married April 14, 1864. They were members of two of the 
oldest and most respected families in Fayette County, the 
father having been born in Williamson County, but a resident of Favette 
County for nearly seventy years since he was a small child, save for the four 
years that he rode with Forrest ; and the mother having been born in that county. 
Mr. Flippin was educated in the public school of his native county and later 
took a commercial course. Being the oldest of five children, the responsibilities 
of the family fell largely upon his shoulders upon the death of his father. 
At twenty years of age he began his business career as a clerk in a store at 
Somerville, Tennessee, and in three years had accumulated enough to go into 
the mercantile business for himself at Oakland. He prospered from the start 
and in 1895 moved to Covington, Tennessee, where he opened a general store 
and did a business which grew steadily from the start until 1912, when 
on account of ill health, he retired for a time from active business. However, 
two years of rest and travel throughout the United States restored his health 
completely, and that being the case his energy required an outlet in the form 
of active business again. In March, 1914, he organized the First State Bank 
of Covington, and has been the head of it from that time to this, now being 
the chairman of the hoard of directors. Aside from his interest in the bank, 
he has acquired large holdings of land which he farms on a large scale. He is 
also a large operator in the matter of making loans, especiallv on farm lands. 
Mr. Flippin was married June 28, 1905, to Miss Elizabeth Bryant of Virginia, 
a most charming and cultured woman, and their home, under her guidance, 
is both one of the most hospitable in Tipton County and the scene of frequent 
delightful social affairs. Mr. Flippin is a nephew of two of the most dis- 
tinguished jurists in West Tennessee, as well as two of its most useful citizens ; 
Judge Thomas J. Flippin and Judge John R. Flippin, the former late of 
Somerville and the latter late of Memphis. They were elected judges of the 
Circuit courts of their respective districts on the same day. The Memphian 
also served as mayor of his city, and then retired to private practice and lived 
to a ripe old age respected by the entire community and loved by all who 
knew him. The other brother remained on the bench of the district surround- 
ing Memphis for thirty-two years and by a wise administration of the law 
tempered with mercy was able to instill into his constituents a respect for, 
rather than fear of, the law in a section which knew no fear and during the 
Civil War knew no civil law. 



726 




|. II. FLIPPIN 



727 



3 . €. $olme* 




^(IIIN ELMORE HOLMES, lawyer; Memphis. Tennessee, like 
Wl so many other of the leading citizens of Memphis, is a native 
$ApQ of Mississippi, but he was horn so close to the line between 
%3 wis) Mississippi and Tennessee that he is almost a Tennessean. 
His grandfather, Finley Holmes, was one of the early settlers 
of this section, having bought a big tract of land on both 
sides of the State line just Southwest of Capleville, Tennessee, in 1836. 
Mr. J. E. Holmes was born on the family estate in DeSoto County. Mississippi, 
-April 18r 1875, the son of Francis and Lizzie (Clarke) Ilolmes. his father 
having been born there and having spent a long, useful and honorable life 
in the community. After having attended the common schools at home, 
Mr. Holmes went to the luka Normal School at Iuka. Mississippi, and then 
to the University of Mississippi at Oxford, where in 1899 he took his degree 
of bachelor of law. He began the practice of law in Hernando, the county 
seat of his native county, in partnership with his brother, F. C. Holmes. The 
firm enjoyed a large and lucrative practice until 1906, when Mr] Holmes was 
chosen professor of law at the University of Mississippi. He loved his alma 
mater and had a laudable ambition to lie classed later in life with the truly 
great men who had filled chairs both in law and classics in that institution. 
To perfect himself in that line, he spent the two summers between his three 
terms by taking post-graduate courses in the law school of the U/niversity of 
Chicago. However, in 1910 he resigned and moved to Memphis where he 
resumed the practice of his profession, alone until November, 1918, when he 
and Phil. M. Canale formed the firm of Holmes & Canale. From his advent 
to the Memphis bar. Mr. Holmes has been recognized as one of its best 
equipped members in talent, temperament, education and integrity, and his 
firm is one of the leading ones in the Mid-South. He has never sought political 
office, although an active factor both in Mississippi and Tennessee for the 
best men and the best measures, of course, along Democratic lines. In 1916 
he was induced to accept appointment as chairman of the County Commission 
which position he filled for two years. He secured the passage of an act by 
which the county collects interest to the amount of some $15,000 yearly on 
its deposits and was instrumental in starting "the first anti-mosquito campaign 
in the county. He is a director in the Chamber of Commerce, the Y. M. C. A. 
and the Guaranty Bank iS: Trust Company; a member of the Methodist Church, 
and Eta Chapter of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. He is now serving as chairman 
of the Education Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and has served on 
practically all of the Chamber of Commerce committees. Mr. Holmes and 
Miss Eula Owens, a daughter of Captain A. T. Owens of Oxford, Mississippi, 
married June 28, 1899. They have two sons, Elmore and Andrew Holmes. 



728 




J. E. HOLMES 



729 



0, J9. Mlougi) 




[AVER NEWTON KILLOUGH, Wynne, Arkansas, lawyer, 
planter, long active in the public affairs of the entire State 
and one of the most effective forces in the development of 
the St. Francis Levee System, was born at White Hall, in 
Poinsett County, Arkansas, February 18, 1865, the son of 
John W. and Mary Eliza (Rooks) Killough. He went to 
the University of Mississippi at Oxford, from 1881 to 1885, taking the full 
literary course. He took his law course at the University of Virginia from 
1888 to 1890, being admitted to the practice of the profession of law in the 
circuit courts of Arkansas, December 19, 1888. Upon the completion of 
his course in Virginia, he returned to Arkansas and began actively^ the practice 
of his profession. He soon became recognized as one of the leading lawyers 
of the eastern portion of the State. In 1896 he was elected prosecuting attorney 
for the Second Judicial district, which position he filled with distinction for 
four years, going from that to the capital as representative of his district in 
the lower house of the Legislature. From 1903 to 1907 he was a member of 
the State Senate. His colleagues elected him president of that body which 
carries with it in Arkansas the lieutenant governorship. Again from 1907 to 
1909, he represented his district in the lower house. He was a valuable member 
of the legislature in both houses, but probably the most conspicuous service 
rendered by him to his people and the State at large was in his connection with 
the St. Francis Levee Board. He was president of that body from 1901 to 1905 
and again from 1910 to 1914. During his first administration great progress 
was made in the extension of the levee line and in strengthening it. It was 
during his last term at the head of the organization that the terrible floods 
of 1912 and 1913 came down. The levee then was far from being up to 
standard height and strength and when the rainfall was recorded on the Ohio 
River gauges all who were familiar with what those readings indicated with 
reference to the St. Francis levee knew that the line could not hold the water 
which would come down. But Mr. Killough made a gallant fight and saved 
the great bulk of the basin from overflow. Then came his great work — 
re-inspiring the people with confidence in the levee system and a determina- 
tion to make them of the required size. He was president of the Mississippi 
River Levee Association from 1912 to 1914, and has been vice-president of 
the Rivers & Harbors Congress since 1910. His faith in the alluvial lands 
and success in financial affairs are shown by his owning ten thousand acres 
of land in Cross and Poinsett Counties. He and Miss Blanche Malone were 
married February 8, 1891. They and their two sons, Walter Newton and Oliver 
Niel, live delightfully in his magnificent home, "Killone" on the point of 
Crowley's Ridge at Wynne. 



730 




( i. \\ KILL* >l'i;n 



731 



loijn B. Jflartm 




lOHN DONELSON MARTIN, Memphis, Tennessee, recog- 
nized as one of the ablest lawyers in the Mid-South, is also 
equally a leader in the business, political, athletic and club 
life of the community. Mr. Martin was born here. May 4, 
1883, the son of John Donelson and Mary Walker (Hull) 
Martin. Mr. Martin's mother was a granddaughter of Justice 
Alexander M. Clayton of the Mississippi Supreme Court. The Donelson and 
Martin families are two of the oldest in Tennessee, ever conspicuous for their 
leadership, high attainments, virtues and gentility. The first John D. Martin, 
a 'Memphis physician, a brigadier-general in the Confederate Army, was killed 
in action. The second of the name was long a leading lawyer and highly 
respected citizen of Memphis. The third, or present, John D. Martin, received 
his early education in Memphis, and going to the University of Virginia at 
the age of seventeen years, was graduated in both the academic and law- 
courses in 1905. Returning at once to Memphis he had the good fortune and 
good judgment to become associated with the Honorable Thomas B. Turley, 
then one of the leading lawyers of the United States and at the zenith of his 
career — a rare opportunity of which Mr. Martin took full advantage for four 
years. Then he became junior member of the law firm of Lehman, Gates & 
Martin, and of the succeeding firm of Gates & Martin, which partnership 
endured until January 1, 1920, when Mr. Martin engaged independently in 
the general practice of law, with several assistants. He received the indorse- 
ment of the entire State superior judiciary, leading State officials, State Demo- 
cratic organization and the two senators for the vacancy on the local federal 
bench in 1920, but the overwhelming Republican landslide in the November 
presidential election negatived what seemed his certainty of appointment. 
Mr. Martin is a member of the Tennessee Club, the Memphis Country Club 
and the City Club. He was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon college 
fraternity at the University of Virginia, and formerly was a president of the 
Chickasaw Guards Club. During the World War he was a member of the dis- 
trict exemption board for the Western Division of Tennessee. He is a member 
of the board of directors of the Union & Planters Bank & Trust Company and 
of ten other large Memphis companies. He has been a member of the Demo- 
cratic State Executive Committee since 1916. Mr. Martin has alwavs been a 
keen lover of clean spurts and for a number of years was president of the 
Memphis baseball club. At the beginning of the 1919 season he was unanimously 
chosen president of the Southern League and has been twice re-elected. He 
is alsu vice-president of the National Baseball Association. Mr. Martin and 
Miss Savilla Driver were married December 15. 1909. They have two children: 
John Donelson Martin, Jr., and Savilla Driver Martin. 



732 




[OHN D. MARTI X 



733 



Br. f. $. iHc€lrop 




AMES BASSETT McELROY. Memphis, Tennessee, recog- 
nized by the medical profession as being unsurpassed by any 
physician south of the Ohio River in the scientific practice of 
medicine, and as the equal of any man in the United States 
in that line, was born in Columbus, Mississippi, December 30, 
1866. the son of James Willerford and Clemenza Tennessee 
McElroy. He attended Franklin Academy at Columbus and went to the Uni- 
versity of Mississippi at Oxford, where he earned the degree of bachelor of 
sciences in 1888. He returned home with a burning ambition to be a doctor 
but without the means to pursue that course. Franklin Academy afforded him 
an opportunity and he taught there for three terms, saving enough money to 
go to the College of Physicians & Surgeons in Baltimore, Maryland. He fin- 
ished the course there in 1893 and the following year moved to Stovall, Missis- 
sippi, where he engaged in the practice of his profession. His possible clientele 
in that little Delta town consisted of a very few people of the highest class and 
many plantation negroes. His analytical mind soon determined that one of the 
greatest losses of efficiency in the Delta was due to malaria. He began a 
scientific study of that disease and finally in his little country office at Stovall 
assembled a laboratory worthy of a large city. In the meanwhile he had taken 
a post-graduate course at Johns Hopkins, and in 1898 returned to Stovall, 
pursuing his laboratory investigations, applying science to every case that he 
had, studying constantly and specializing in malaria. He was the first man in 
the profession to write on "Malarial Gangrene." At the end of three years in 
Stovall, Doctor McElroy determined to enter the cosmopolitan field at Memphis. 
took another post-graduate course at Johns Hopkins and moved here in 1904. 
From the day that he opened his office here. Doctor McElroy was recognized 
by the profession as probably the best equipped and most scientific addition 
ever made to its ranks in the practice of general medicine, and the public 
quicklv arrived at the same conclusion. For years he enjoyed a large and 
successful general practice, but of recent years he has confined his attention 
largely to diagnosis and consultation, in which he covers the entire Mid-South. 
The W. P. Prvor Publishing Company induced Doctor McElroy to write the 
chapter on "Diseases of the Kidney" for Tice's "Practice of Medicine." Doctor 
McElrov was the first occupant of the chair of pathology at the Memphis 
Hospital Medical College, and later became professor of Medicine in the 
University of Tennessee College of Medicine. He is a member of the Metho- 
dist Church ; Tennesse Club ; Beta Theta Pi Fraternity ; local and American 
Medical associations and Fellow of American College of Physicians. He and 
Miss Halle Mai Kilpatrick were married November 2, 1896. Their only child 
is James Warric McElroy. 



734 




DR. I. B. McELRI >Y 



735 



ft. Jf . Ha Croix 





[OBERT FLAUTT LA CROIX. Memphis. Tennessee, one of the 
most active men in the city and one of the most prominent and 

R(£S. successful coal operators in the South, was horn here Jan- 
(?v uary 15, 1875, the son of Jacob and Josephine (Wetter) 
La Croix. He attended the public schools of the city and 
the Christian Brothers' College here. Then to tit himself 
more completely for a business career, he went to Nelson's Business College. 
When he became twenty-one years of age, Mr. LaCroix began active life with 
the Southern Snuff Company. The latter part of the same year he was con- 
nected with J. L. Fazzi & Company. In L897 he worked for a time for 
W. C. Early & Company in the wholesale grocery business and then went with 
the Benham Furniture Company, where he remained until 1900. Then he 
joined the forces of Bryan & Eberhart in the coal business, finding there the 
line which was especially suited for his talents, and in which during the past 
twenty years he has made such a signal success. During the six years that 
he spent with that pioneer coal firm of this section of the country he became 
known as one of the best men in that line in the community. Hence it was 
but natural that when the Brown Coal Company, under the direction of 
Mr. Robert L. Brown, was expanding its business, he should go with that 
company. This was in 1906, very soon after the company began to buy and 
operate coal mines in Kentucky. Mr. LaCroix has remained with that com- 
pany ever since that time and now is its secretary and treasurer. Since he has 
been with the company he has been an active factor in its rapid development 
to the point where now it is one of the leading coal producing and distributing 
concerns in the Mid-South. A few years after he joined the forces of the 
company, it discontinued the retail coal business in Memphis to devote its 
activity to the production of coal from its mines in Kentucky. Now the com- 
pany owns four mines in the western field of the State, three located on the lines 
of the Illinois Central Railroad and one on the Louisville & Nashville and it 
is the fourth largest producer of coal in that important field. Mr. LaCroix 
is also secretary and treasurer of the Gibraltar Coal Mining Company and of 
the Mercer Coal Company, both concerns allied with the parent Brown Coal 
Company. In addition to his coal interests, Mr. LaCroix has a number of 
outside investments. He is vice-president of the firm of J. T. Hinton & Son, 
Incorporated, leading undertakers of this section of the country, and a director 
in the Liberty Savings Bank & Trust Company. He is also a director in the 
Rotary Club, and a member of the Colonial Country Club, Newman's Athletic 
Club and the various Masonic bodies, being a Shriner and president of Al 
Chymia chanters. Mr. LaCroix and Miss Eva \ erka were married February 
28. 1909, at Sardis, Mississippi. 



736 




R. F. La CK< >I\ 



\v 



$ugf) B. ©omltnson 




UGH DOUGLASS TOMLINSON, Butler, Arkansas, mer- 
chant, planter, and long the able head of the St. Francis 
Levee System, was born in Dover, Stewart County, Tennessee, 
April 19, 1859, the son of Uriah Douglass and Mattie Tom- 
linson. After having attended the common and high schools 
of Tennessee and Kentucky, he came to Memphis, Novembei 
6, 1879, and entered the employ of the Lee Line Steamers as a clerk on steam- 
boats plying the Mississippi River. From the deck of the steamers he saw the 
two great floods in the Mississippi River of 1882 and 1883 and from the refugees 
on the steamers, heard of all of the destruction, but this did not deter him 
from a realization of the ultimate value of the rich alluvial lands and in 
October, 188.1, he quit the river and moved to Osceola, Arkansas, to reside. 
On May 31, 1883, he had married Miss Mollie Matthews, daughter of Captain 
Dan Matthews, one of the first and most sturdy settlers of Mississippi County. 
She owned some property near Osceola, and on that Mr. Tomlinson began 
planting and merchandising. They sold this a few years later and bought a 
place at Butler, to which Mr. Tomlinson has added greatly by later purchases. 
He has developed this until now it is one of the finest plantations in the 
Mississippi basin with a colonial home containing every city convenience situated 
just back of the levee. Mr. Tomlinson served six years as clerk of the Circuit 
Court for Mississippi County and was one of the most efficient officials that 
the county ever had. When the late Captain Henry N. Pharr began the 
organization of the St. Francis Levee System in 1892, he found in Mr. Tom- 
linson one of the strongest advocates of that system and a most valuable aid 
in overcoming the opposition in his section of the country to the scheme with 
its consequent expense. He was appointed a member of the board of directors 
of the levee commission in 1905, and two years later was chosen its secretary 
in which capacity he served for four years. In 1915 he was elected president 
of the board and has filled that position with signal benefit to the district ever 
since that time, having been re-elected in 1920 by acclamation for a two-year 
term. Since 1905, except when he was serving as secretary or president of 
the board, he has been a member of the advisory board. Hence he has been 
the leading factor not only in recouping from the disasters of 1912 and 1913, 
but also in building the one hundred and sixty-one miles of levee to where 
seventy-live per cent of the levee is up to the government specification and 
half of the banquette work is complete. In the matters of drainage and hard- 
surfaced roads, especially the Scenic Highway, he has been almost equally as 
active as in levee work, while he showed the same spirit with the first railroad 
in the county. Mr. and Mrs. Tomlinson have three children: Mrs. Beulah A 
Ross, John B. and Hugh D., Jr. 



38 




lll'iill I). T< >MLINS< IN 



739 



3. M. Malfcer 




THAMES M. WALKER, Memphis, Tennessee, owner of one of 
the largest warehouses of its kind in the United States, being 
fireproof throughout, has achieved at less than forty years of 
age a degree of success which few men have reached in an 
ordinary lifetime, and yet has found time to be of great 
service to his community and to the nation. He was born 
in Brownsville, Tennessee, October 8, 1881, the son of John K. and Myra E, 
(Mann) Walker. He attended the public schools of Haywood County, but at 
the age of fourteen years began as office boy and later a salesman for the 
Hotchkis-> & I.yle Company in Brownsville. He remained with that firm for 
two years and then went to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, completing his education 
under Professor Junius Jordan. Pater he moved to Memphis, and in 1906 
he devoted his energies to activities here and in Pine Bluff. Then he went to 
Mangum, Oklahoma, where he spent six years in the wholesale and retail 
furniture business, returning to Memphis in the latter part of 1912. He organ- 
ized the O. K. Storage & Transfer Company with the slogan, "The world 
moves and so do we." He put into the business a degree of energy and effi- 
ciency which made it live up to this motto. In January, 1916, he incorporated 
the firm under the original name, and from that date until now he has been its 
president, treasurer and general manager. But the tremendous energy that 
he has put into this business has not consumed nearly all of that which he 
possessed, and for years he has been active in all of the movements for the 
up-building of the community. He is one of the most active stewards in 
St. John's Methodist Church; one of the most vigorous members of the Cham- 
ber of Commerce, having been elected to the highest elective office in that body, 
that of president; is a Scottish Rite Mason of the thirty-second degree; 
has also taken the Shrine degrees, being a member of Al Chymia Temple; 
has joined the Knights of Pythias: is a member of the Elks Club, the Colonial 
Country Club and the Rotary Club, and is one of the most useful members 
of the Tri-State Fair Directory. He is also president of the Universal Motor 
Car Company, the Citizens' Loan & Trust Company, and of the Maldezone 
Chemical Manufacturing Company; vice-president of the Liberty Savings Bank 
& Trust Company, and the Industrial Bank & Trust Company; and director in 
the Standard Rug & Shade Company, and the Lee Furniture Manufacturing 
Company, all of Memphis; and president of the ( >. K. Storage & Transfer 
Company of Xew Orleans. He was a heavy investor and active worker in 
the Liberty Loan and War Savings Stamp drives, and one of the organizers 
and first officers in the Memphis and Shelby County Anti-Tuberculosis Society, 
and is active in that work. Mr. Walker and Miss Mittie F. Knox were married 
in Pine Bluff, November 10. 1904. Their children are John K. and [ames 
Richard Walker. 



740 




I. M. WALKER 



741 



George ®. WLtbb 




EORGE TILMAN WEBB, cotton factor, banker and capital- 
ist, Memphis, Tennessee, was bom in a section of the country 
that was not wealthy and at a period when his locality was far 
from prosperous, but he had a vision of greater things than 
his then surroundings and an ambition coupled with boundless 
energy and good hard sense. The son of John C. and Edna C. 
Webb, he was born near Middleton in Hardeman County, Tennessee, April 6, 
1860. He attended school near his home for the two or three months of each 
year that the school was open and that he could get the time from work on 
the farm, and after he was twenty years old, attended the school at Rock Hill, 
near Middleton, for a year and a half. He then traveled for six years for a 
medicine concern, and by the end of that time had saved up enough money to 
open a store at Rogers Springs, a few miles west of his home. He prospered 
there, but at the end of three years realized that he needed a broader field 
for his activities. Hence, in 1892, he moved diagonally across the county to the 
little town of Whiteville. The soil was far better and the newly constructed 
railroad afforded an outlet. He was one of the main factors in the rapid 
development of that city and the surrounding country, until now Whiteville is 
one of the best and most attractive cities in West Tennessee. In 1900 he sold 
his mercantile business there and organized and managed the Whiteville Savings 
Bank & Trust Company. In 1905 he moved to Memphis as cashier of the then 
forming Bankers Trust Company. The following year he resigned that posi- 
tion and organized the cotton factoring firm of Geo. T. Webb & Companv, 
which is still his principal business and which ranks as one of the leading 
factoring firms of Memphis. He is also president of the Whiteville Savings 
Bank, the Bank of Middleton, the Cordova Bank & Trust Company at Cordova, 
Tennessee, a member of the mercantile firm of Webb & Ellis at Eads, Ten- 
nessee, and the mercantile firm of Webb & Deen at Reverie, Tennessee. He is 
also interested in the Webb &: Anderson Gin at Eads, the Farmers Gin at 
Moscow, Tennessee, and the Rossville Gin at Rossville, Tennessee. Mr. Webb 
also operates and owns a farm of 1,200 acres of land in Crittenden County, 
Arkansas, and 2,000 acres on Island Xo. 35, in Tipton County, Tennessee, as 
well as owning smaller tracts in Tennessee. Mississippi and Alabama. Mr. Webb 
has never sought office, but while he was in Whiteville, he served as chair- 
man of the board of trustees for the Western Hospital for the Insane at 
Bolivar. Mr. Webb has been married three times; first to Miss Flora Babcock 
in 1889, later to Miss Jennie Lou Rhea in 1901, and last to Miss Lenna V. Gee, 
superintendent of schools, Hardeman County. His children are: Guy, Karl, 
Gerald, Iris and George B.. the issue of his marriage to Miss Babcock, and 
Abe Rhea and Virginia, the issue of his marriage to Miss Rhea. 



742 




i ;e( >rge t. w ebb 



74.^ 



M. 3T. JBoulbin 



Z<^ARSHALL J. BOULDIX, leader in the commercial, financial, 

M banking, planting, political, social and club life of Clarksdale, 

/aij Mississippi, had no opportunities thrust upon him, but showed 
jPf] that he possessed within himself the elusive element of success 
by grasping every one that came within reach. Born Decem- 
ber 21, 1862, in DeSoto County, I Mississippi, the son of 
Ephraim and Mrs. Katie Jones Bouldin, his scholastic education was confined 
to the free schools of his native county. At seventeen years of age he was 
agent and telegraph operator for the old Mississippi & Tennessee Railroad, 
now the main line of the Illinois Central Railroad south from Memphis. He 
was the first agent for the railroad at Tunica, Mississippi, and in 1886 became 
agent for the road at Clarksdale. Mississippi. Mis ability was not to be con- 
fined to any such narrow limit, and soon he went into the general insurance 
business. In 1896 he was elected to the most important county office in 
Coahoma County, clerk and master of the Chancery Court, in which capacity 
he served for two terms, passing in 1904 to the almost equally important 
office of sheriff and tax collector, which position he occupied for four vears, 
making a most efficient public servant in both offices. At the end of his 
shrievalty, he found the small wholesale grocery firm of Broaddus & Ferris 
at a standstill from lack of funds, its original capital of $10,000 having been 
consumed. He put his ability and money into this business, and it began to 
develop from that day. Having enjoyed two of the most lucrative offices in 
the county, he was willing to serve his people, where there was work to be 
done but comparatively no pay. He put in two terms as member of the 
city council and mayor. At all times except during the dry seasons, the streets 
of Clarksdale were legal highways, but not streets, on account of the mud. 
He put down the first pavement. Insurance rates were almost prohibitive and 
lire loss tremendous from lack of a fire department. He organized and installed 
the first one. Meanwhile the grocery firm continued to grow. He had taught 
the neighboring planters that they could get their supplies there cheaper and 
quicker than they could from Memphis commission merchants. Many took 
stock with him, and in 1909 the name was changed from Broaddus & Ferris 
Company to the Delta Grocery & Cotton Company, now with a capital stock 
of $500,000, and a yearly business of a million and a half dollars, handling 
25,000 bales of cotton. Mr. Bouldin is a member of the Presbyterian Church. 
a Mason, a Templar, a Shriner, an Elk, a Rotarian, and a member of the 
Chamber of Commerce, having served as grand chancellor of the Knights of 
Pythias for one year. On July 15, 1890, Air. Bouldin and Miss Helen Alcorn 
were married. They have four children, Mrs. L. A. Gilliam, Mrs. F. C. Marley, 
W. M. Botts and Marshall J. Bouldin, Jr. 



744 




M. |. 1!< )l "1.1)1. \ 



745 



Br. M. 8C. Iribe 




[LLIAM THOMAS PRIDE. Memphis. Tennessee, doctor of 
medicine and one of the leading specialists in the Mid-South 
in gynecology and obstetrics, is a native of Northern Alabama. 
He conies from that hardy pioneer stock which settled in 
the valley of the Tennessee River in the early days and 
became such conspicuous factors in the development of the 
high civilization there and were equally prominent in the growth of the country 
to the west and south of them. Doctor Pride was born in Huntsville, Octo- 
ber 28, 1881. the son of J. W'illsey and Katherine (Mason) Pride. After having 
attended the public schools at home, including the Madison County High School, 
from which he was graduated at the age of sixteen years, he entered the South 
Kentucky College at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, a military institution, from which 
he received in 1901 the degrees of bachelor and master of arts. He then 
decided upon the practice of medicine for his life work and went to Phila- 
delphia, Pennsylvania, for his education. In 1902 he entered the University 
of Pennsylvania, where he earned his degree of doctor of medicine with such 
class honors in 1906, based upon his class standing for the first three years 
that he became a member of the honorary Greek letter fraternity — Alpha 
Omega Alpha. His standing in his classes stood him in good stead again, for, 
upon receiving his degree, he was appointed an interne in the University Hospital, 
and became its chief resident surgeon. He remained there two years, and on 
October 6, 1908, selected Memphis as the scene for his future success. In 
Memphis he has specialized in gynecology and obstetrics, that important branch 
of the science of medicine which for so long failed to keep pace with the 
change in -conditions under which women lived, but which in recent years has 
done so much to make the next generation of mankind healthier and stronger 
and so much toward reducing mortality among babies. Doctor Pride forged 
rapidly to the front and is justly regarded as one of the leading men in that 
line in the Mid-South. Doctor Pride's broad humanity reaches far beyond 
the practice of his specialty. The ravages of the white plague were apparent 
to all. He was willing to put his time and money in the eradication of the 
disease. He has long been a member of the Shelby County Anti-Tuberculosis 
Society, and since 1917 he has been its vice-president. He is a member of the 
American Medical Society; Southern Medical Association; Tennessee State 
Medical Association ; Memphis and Shelby County Medical Society : Clinical 
Congress of Surgeons, and Tri-State Medical Association. He is on the staffs 
of the General, Baptist, St. Joseph and Lucy Brinkley hospitals, and associate 
professor of obstetrics at the University of Tennessee. He and Miss Marguerite 
Warner were married October 29, 1915. 



746 




DR. XV. T. PRIDE 



747 



r. $. P. Cberctt 




jOCTOR HI RAM BAILEY EVERETT, leading physician and 
surgeon and for a number of years the most progressive 
citizen of Binghamton when it was a separate municipality 
and also since it has become a portion of the City of Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, was born in Newton County, Mississippi, 
October 15, 1883, the son of Elansum Green and Frances 
(Tatum) Everett. He attended the public schools of Hickory, Mississippi, and 
the Georgia Robinson Christian School in Henderson, Tennessee, under Profes- 
sors Freed and McDougall. Young; Everett then decided that he would make 
the profession of medicine his life work and he came to Memphis and entered 
the old Memphis Hospital Medical College, which for years had a faculty 
surpassed by few institutions in that line in the United States and which is the 
alma mater of so many of the great doctors and surgeons of the entire South 
today. He received his degree of doctor of medicine from that institution 
in 1906 and was graduated at so high a rank in his class that he was given an 
interneship in St. Joseph's Hospital. In the year that he spent in that noble 
institution he gained such valuable experience that when the following year 
he went to Binghamton and began the practice of his profession, his equip- 
ment was immediately recognized and it was but a short time until he had 
drawn to himself a wonderful clientele. His development both from a profes- 
sional and also from a financial point of view has been steady, and even rapid 
from the time that he became known to the people among whom he had 
located. Binghamton was not then so attractive as it is now. There was not 
a concrete sidewalk nor was there a brick building in the community. Sanitary 
conditions were at as low an ebb in the tide as were civic affairs. True to the 
high ideals of his profession he went to work to eliminate the cause of the 
condition from which came his income. Soon he was made health officer of 
the town. Typhoid fever and other minor preventable diseases were current 
every favorable season. His vigor and efficiency led the movement for their 
reduction to a minimum. So also was he a leader in civic developments. 
Twice was he named on commissions to spend money raised from bond issues 
for public improvements. Concrete walks followed. He erected in 1913 his 
first brick business house in the town, added two others in 1917, and another 
in 1920, and indications are that soon he will move his residence off Main 
Street and build a third. In the World War he was chairman of the exemption 
board which had accepted one thousand and one men to the army with the 
lowest per capita expense of any board in Shelby County. He is a member 
of the Colonial Country Club, and the American and practically all of the 
lesser medical societies. Doctor Everett and Miss Evelyn Thompson of Neshoba, 
Tennessee, were married January 28, 1912. 



748 




DR. 11. B. EVERETT 



74'' 



&. i. JBeare 




OBERT LEE BEARE, manufacturer, capitalist and leading 
business man, Jackson, Tennessee, is a native of Mississippi, 

R(i~?\ having been born December 2, 1864, at Aberdeen, the son of 
(cv David Seig and Sarah (Taylor) Beare. He received his 
education in the public schools, but at the age of fifteen vears 
began his career as messenger boy in the telegraph office at 
Aberdeen. By the following year he had mastered the code and had been given 
a key in the telegraph office. He followed telegraphy for some years, spending 
a year at Fort Morgan, Alabama, as displayman in the United States Army 
Signal Service and telegraph operator. Then he went to West Point, Mississippi, 
becoming manager of the telegraph office there, where he spent three years 
until he was promoted to manager of the office in Aberdeen. During that 
time he invested in the ice manufacturing business at Humboldt, Tennessee, 
and five years later resigned his position with the telegraph company at Aber- 
deen and moved to Humboldt, devoting all of his time to the ice business. 
He spent ten years in that line at Humboldt, during which time he expanded 
the business and enlarged the plant until it was one of the best in West Ten- 
nessee. Mr. Beare had prospered with the business until he sought a wider 
field. In 1905 he sold his entire holdings at Humboldt and moved to Jackson, 
since which time he has taken a very active part in every movement for the 
upbuilding of that city and Madison County. Under the firm name of the 
Beare Brothers Ice & Coal Company, he established a large plant there. It was 
a success from the start, although the brothers who had been associated with 
him in the enterprise died soon after it was begun. In 1912 he built an addi- 
tional plant and took the contract for icing the refrigerator cars of the Mobile & 
Ohio Railroad. Three years later he purchased the large plant and business of 
the Consumers Ice Company and with the consequent economy in operation 
and delivery, he reduced the price of ice in Jackson and since that time has 
steadily kept the price down. Mr. Beare was a heavy stockholder in and presi- 
dent of the O'Malley-Beare Valve Company of Chicago, but in 1916, sold his 
interest in the company and resigned the presidency. He served for a time 
as president of the Jackson Association of Commerce; is vice-president of the 
Southern Interior Traffic Association: member of the board of governors of 
the Tennessee Manufacturers' Association ; charter member of the Jackson 
Country Club and Rotary Club; director in the Birmingham Northwestern 
Railway ; Mercantile Union Trust Company and Second National Bank, and 
president of the Beare Ice & Coal Company ; was active for years in the militia 
and belongs to the principal clubs in Jackson. He and Miss Mary Reiney were 
married October 4, 1905. Their children are Mary Hortense and Robert Lee 
Beare, Jr. 



750 




R. I.. HE ARK 



751 



M. C. Cfjanbler 



ILL1AM CULLEN CHANDLER, who probably has built more 

W. houses in Memphis, Tenessee, on his own land than any other 
7aM man, and who is distinctly a man of action rather than words, 
L&p) is a native of Tennessee, having been born in Madison County, 
September 20, 1884. the son of William Green and Ella (Ruff) 
(.handler. He was number six in a family of nine children. 
He attended the public schools at Jackson, Tennessee, through the fifth grade, 
then put in three years in night schools at Jackson, working by day. and later 
was graduated from the commercial department of the Southwestern Baptist 
University at Jackson. He and a brother were engaged in the decorating 
business in Bessemer, Alabama, for six years until 1910. when he sold out 
and went to Texas. He was in business there for a short time and then became 
a salesman throughout the central and southwest for several eastern firms 
dealing in art goods. During the latter part of the time that he was in the 
West, his headquarters were in Denver, Colorado, and it was from there that 
he removed to Memphis in 1912. He attended the Memphis Law School for 
two years and after having received his diploma, he successfully took the exam- 
ination of the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners and in 1915 was admitted 
to the practice of that profession. However, instead of pursuing the law 
for a livelihood, Mr. Chandler took up the line of dealing in real estate 
and building and selling houses. There were a few homes in the city then 
of the bungalow type, but to him probably more than to anyone else is due 
the credit for the present popularity of that form of construction. He adopted 
"Bilt Rite" as his slogan, and the houses which he constructed were not 
only built right, but they contained such a touch of the artistic that they were 
very attractive to the intended purchasers. Mr. Chandler erected his first 
"Bilt Rite" bungalow at Xo. 1125 Central Avenue in 1913, and soon expanded 
his line until he would acquire a large tract of land, develop it, erect "Bilt 
Rite" bungalows on it and sell them. He built twenty-two of these on Forrest 
Avenue, east of Bellevue Boulevard. He acquired the Cummings property 
north of McLemore Avenue, developed the Azalia Subdivision, built thirty-two 
"Bilt Rite" bungalows on it and sold them all. In all he has erected on his own 
land some one hundred and fifty houses in Memphis and thus added half a 
million or more dollars to the taxable value of the city. Mr. Chandler now is 
the head of the real estate firm of Chandler & Walden, which he says is "Just 
'Home-Folks' with offices in the Goodwyn Institute Building." He is a member 
of the Chamber of Commerce, the City Club and the Unitarian Church. 
Mr. Chandler was married September 20, 1905. to Miss Aetna Kastner. daugh- 
ter of Charles Kastner of Milan, Tennessee. Their children are: Charles, 
Howard, Tom Ruff, and Juanita. 



"52 




W. C. CHANDLER 



753 



<&. OT. CuHjerfjou^e 




EORGE WASHINGTON CULBERHOUSE, merchant, 
planter, cattle raiser and leading citizen of Jonesboro, Arkansas, 
is a native of Tennessee, like so many other of the earlier 
citizens of the eastern section of the State. He was born in 
Bedford County, Tennessee, January 5, 1852, the son of Moses 
and Pafthina (Roberts) Culberhouse. His father was an exten- 
sive planter and stock raiser in Middle Tennessee, where he moved in 1834 from 
North Carolina. Thomas Culberhouse, father of Moses Culberhouse, was a 
native of Berkshire, England. The Culberhouses remained in Tennessee only 
eighteen years, when they moved to Arkansas, settling in what then was Greene 
County in October, 1852, seven years before the Legislature of the State created 
his section into Craighead County, and there the father and mother reared a large 
and useful family. Moses Culberhouse died there in 1872, but his widow lived 
with her son, George \Y., to a ripe old age and to enjoy the distinction which her 
children had received. Times were not prosperous in that part of Greene County 
in the early fifties and Mr. Culberhouse spent most of his young years in the field 
with his father and elder brother. Thomas D. Culberhouse. Mr. Culberhouse, 
between the crops, managed to get in an aggregate of fifteen months at schools in 
the neighborhood, until he was twenty years of age when he moved to Jonesboro 
and began clerking in a drygoods store. He remained there for four years and 
then he became interested with his brother, Thomas D. in the merchandise 
business. This association continued for ten years and at the expiration of that 
time Mr. George W. Culberhouse became the sole owner of it. In 1918 he 
organized the Jonesboro Supply Company of which he is the president. In 1919 
he organized the Jonesboro Grocery Company, in which he is a director and of 
the $100,000 capital stock of which he is a large holder. In 1920 he organized 
the Arkansas Brick & Lumber Company, with a capital of $100,000 of which he 
is a large owner and in which he also is a director. He is also a director and 
stockholder in the Jonesboro Insurance Agency, organized in 1919; and also in 
the O. K. Motor Sales Company, organized in 1920 with a capital stock of 
$50,000. In addition to these business holdings, Mr. Culberhouse owns a planta- 
tion of one thousand acres in Craighead County where he raises cotton for the 
main crop, and also of a farm of half a section where he specializes in Hereford 
cattle. In his early mercantile career, Mr. Culberhouse freighted his merchandise 
from Memphis, and he helped cut the right of way for the first railroad in the 
county, and aided greatly in the building of what now is the Frisco through 
Craighead County. He and Miss Ola Dondinau were married November 24, 1874. 
They have no child of their own, but have adopted three orphans: Flossie Belle 
Hughes, Nannie Pounds and Mattie Campbell. 



754 




G. W. CULBERHOUSE 



755 



OT. 3L Cox 




[LLIAM ARTHUR COX. banker, lawyer and planter, Marks, 
Mississippi, one of the pioneer business men and developers of 
Quitman County, comes of pioneer stock. He is the son of 
George M. and Amanda C. Cox. His father, George M. Cox, 
migrated when only a small boy from his ancestral home in 
South Carolina into Georgia, and after a few years there, moved 
on further west into what now is Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, then so sparsely 
settled that his home in the northern part of the county was several miles from 
the nearest neighbor. Mr. Cox was born near Enid. Tallahatchie County, Jan- 
uary 10, 1877. and attended the common and high school there. From twenty 
to twenty-two years of age he attended the University of Mississippi, and was 
given the degree of bachelor of laws in 1899. The same year he sought the wider 
opportunities which the Delta offered to an ambitious young lawyer than those 
afforded in the hills and settled in Belen, then the county seat of Quitman County. 
He succeeded in the practice of his profession from the beginning, but, after six 
years of that, he decided to devote the most of his energy to the financial world and 
to business rather than the law. Hence, in 1905, he moved from Belen to River- 
side, where Marks now is. accepting the position of cashier of the Riverside Bank. 
The following year the Town of Marks was officially established, and on account 
of its superior transportation facilities was made the county seat. He served 
during 1906 as the first mayor of the Town of Marks, and from that date to 
this, he has been one of the active figures in the rapid development along all good 
lines not only of Marks, but also of all Quitman County. He remained as 
cashier of the Riverside Bank until 1911, when its success under his direction had 
become so apparent and its efficiency as a factor in the growth of the community 
had become so conspicuous that he was elected its president. He has been 
re-elected every year since that time and now his bank is considered one of the 
most substantial of any in the Delta in a similar community. Mr. Cox has added 
a general insurance agency to his business and also has hastened the development 
of the cut-over lands by making a connection through which farm lands are used 
as a security for loans. As Mr. Cox prospered financially, he began to invest 
his surplus in Delta lands, first in Quitman County, and then in Poinsett County, 
Arkansas. His holdings aggregate some two thousand acres of which twelve 
hundred acres now are in cultivation. Mr. Cox is a member of the Baptist 
Church, of the Clarksdale Lodge of Elks and of the Knights of Pythias. Mr. Cox 
and Miss Myrtle Ellison, daughter of Mr. L. H. Ellison of Memphis, were 
married here in 1906. Their children are William Arthur. Jr., Janfe C, J. Elli- 
son, Fern D., Lelia May, Leon H., and Zula D. 



756 




\Y. A. COX 



757 



#. OT. Jfatson 




iEORGE WASHINGTON FAISON, merchant, planter, banker 
and pioneer in the manufacture of cotton seed oil in the Missis- 
sippi Delta, has been a leading figure in the transformation of 
that wonderful country into the high state of production of 
today. Mr. Faison is a native of the Delta, an old inhabitant, 
although young in years, and for nearly half a century has 
had his shoulder to the wheel, scotching in the lean years and boosting whenever 
there was a chance for even a slight upward motion. Mr. Faison was born in 
Issaquena County, February 23, 1861, the son of George Washington and Ellen 
Rebecca (Fields) Faison. He attended private school near Benton, Mississippi, 
went to school at Winona, and completed his education at Washington and Lee 
University, Lexington, Virginia. At the age of nineteen years, he returned to 
Faisonia, his father's home. His father was in business there and Mr. Faison 
worked for him for five years. In 1885 he opened a store for himself at Shaw. 
Three years later he formed a partnership with his father under the name of 
G. W. Faison & Son. The firm conducted four stores, one each at Shaw, 
Indianola, Faisonia and Steiner. Although the country then was verv wild and 
most of it covered with timber, the firm did a business of more than half a million 
dollars a year, Mr. Faison having active and personal charge of the stores at 
Shaw and Steiner. He was a charter member of the Bank of Shaw and built 
the Shaw Cotton Oil Works. He was one of the active originators of the Indianola 
Cotton Oil Mill, and for a time was interested in the Hollandale Cotton Oil Mill. 
He was also interested in the Planters Bank at Clarksdale and was a director in 
that institution. Soon after he and his father went into business together in the 
chain of stores, Mr. Faison began buying the rich Delta lands, then cheap, and 
cultivating them in cotton. He has been a life-long member of the city council 
of Shaw — not during his entire life, but during the life of Shaw — except for one 
term when the city was deprived of his services on account of his absence. He 
still is a member of that body. In the city government he has always been active 
for the improvement of the community. He was a leader in the plan for giving 
the city waterworks and probably no one factor, except the levees, has done 
more for the growth of the Delta than the substitution of artesian for the 
shallow pump water. He also pushed forward the electric light plant for the 
city. Mr. Faison was a representative from Sunflower County in 1882 at the 
New Orleans Waterways Convention. He and Miss Willie Chamberlain Dejar- 
nette were married February 28, 1893. Their children are George Washigton, Jr., 
and John Dejarnette Faison ; both of them second lieutenants in the A. E. F. — 
George W. in the Fourth Division with the Army of Occupation of Germany, and 
John D. in the Seventh Division. 



758 




<. 




m 




G. W. FAIS< »N 



759 



1. €. (©burnt 




;AMBERT ESTES GWINN, Covington, Tennessee, lawyer, 
one of the leading figures in the Democratic politics of the 
State, former educator and newspaper editor, is a native of 
Tipton County, where he has spent his entire life. He was 
born in the interior town of Burlison, February 13, 1884, the 
l son of J. L. J. and Kiser D. Gwinn, and received his early 
education at the grade and high schools of his native county. At the age of 
sixteen years he began his career as a school teacher and during the next seven 
years made an enviable reputation for himself as one of the leading if the 
youngest educator in the county. During his next two years he was associate 
editor of one of the county newspapers. In that capacity he was as successful 
as he had been in the school room. Mr. Gwinn had from his childhood days 
taken an active interest in all public affairs and his natural bent in that direction 
was strengthened during the time that he was a journalist. While he was 
teaching school and also while he was editing the paper, Mr. Gwinn emploved 
his spare time in the study of the law, and having been admitted to the practice 
at the Covington bar, he severed his connection with the paper in 1909, since 
which time he has devoted his main energies to the practice of that profession. 
He has steadily risen to where he has for a number of years been one of the 
leading members of that bar. Few cases of importance appear in the courts there 
in which he is not engaged on one side or the other. Among his clients is the 
Illinois Central Railroad, of which he is local attorney. For six years follow- 
ing 1911 he again served the cause of education in his county as superintendent 
of public instruction, where he did much to place the grade and high schools 
on a higher basis. He was elected by an overwhelming majority by the democ- 
racy of Shelby and Tipton counties in 1918 as the joint senator from that dis- 
trict in the General Assembly of the State, where he served two years, fathering 
much good legislation for the State at large and for his district, which was tht 
most important in the State. In the meantime he also was a member of the 
State Democratic Executive Committee from 1896 to 1900. He was supervisor 
of the census for the Tenth Congressional District in 1920, and also was an 
elector for the State at large in the national presidential campaign of that year. 
Mr. Gwinn has been as successful in financial circles as he has been in the law 
and in politics. He is president of the Planters Bank of Atoka, Tennessee, and 
a member of the board of directors of the Union Savings Bank of Covington. 
He is also a director in the Covington Business League, and a member of the 
Christian Church. Mr. Gwinn and Miss Willie Agnes Gwinn were married 
April 18, 1911. Their children are: Margaret D. ; L. E., Jr., and Willie Agnes 
Gwinn. 



760 




L. E. GWINN 



761 



I. Jfl. Sail 




JOLTS MAURICE HALL, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the 
largest and most extensive merchandise brokers in the Mid- 
South, owner of valuable real estate and active in all move- 
ments for the upbuilding of the community in which he lives, 
is a native of Yicksburg, Mississippi, where he was born 
September 6, 1866. the son of Ephraim Louis and Catherine 
(McCabe) Hall. He received his education in the college of the Sacred Heart 
Brothers in Yicksburg and at the age of fifteen years went to St. Louis, Mis- 
souri, where for four years he was bookkeeper and cashier for the Blackmer & 
Post Sewer Pipe Company. Then he spent two years in the service of the 
United States Government in connection with the lighthouse service and at the 
end of that time came to Memphis. His first connection here was with Seessel 
iS: Ashner, where he was bookkeeper and cashier for eight years. Then he went 
with AI. E. Carter & Companv in the same line of work, where he remained 
for three years. Then he and Mr. Daniel Grace formed a partnership in the 
produce business, with which he had become thoroughly familiar through his 
previous connections. At the end of a year Mr. Hall became the sole owner of 
the business and conducted it for three years, when his health failed and he 
left Memphis for a year in which he thoroughly recuperated. Returning, he 
was connected with the Patterson Transfer Company and the allied Galloway 
Coal Company for a year in charge of the books of the companies. Then with 
a capital of $93 on the debit instead of the credit side of the ledger, he went 
into the line in which he has achieved such marked success, merchandise bro- 
kerage. The business grew steadily from the start and has continued to do so 
until now it is second to none in the Mid-South. In 1902 Mr. Hall added real 
estate and investments to his line of business and in that also has succeeded to 
where he owns more than one hundred pieces of valuable property in Memphis. 
He is a stockholder in the Central-State National Bank, the Security Bank & 
Trust Company, Pinion & Planters Bank & Trust Company, the Liberty Bank & 
Trust Companv and the Peoples Savings Bank & Trust Company. He is a 
member of the Sacred Heart parish, was secretary of its board of wardens for 
the years 1907, 1908 and 1909; was grand knight of the Knights of Columbus 
for 1918 and. 1919, now is district deputy for the State of Tennessee, and is 
secretary of the welfare board. He was active in the organization of the Sub- 
Mu-Loc Club and has been its president from the beginning. During the World 
War, Mr. Hall was general chairman of the Knights of Columbus committee 
which sold Liberty bonds to the amount of $801,000 in one day. He also was 
active in all of the campaigns for war loans, Red Cross and Jewish Relief. 
Mr. Hall and Miss Florence E. Miller were married October 21, 1891. 



762 




L. M. HALL 



763 



I. $. 3 anesi 




E( >XARD PALMER JANES, Memphis, Tennessee, as head of 
the Memphis Furniture Manufacturing Company, is one of 
leading manufacturers and business men of the entire South, 
In the short space of thirteen years he has risen, by sheer merit 
on his own part, from the position of city salesman for the 
company to its executive head. Mr. Janes' family was one of 
the earliest to settle in Henry County. Tennessee. He was Dorn in Paris, April 
23, 1873, the son of Mrs. Mary Ellen ( Palmer) Janes and the late William Mar- 
shall Janes. Mr. \Y. M. Janes had also been born in the same county, at Osage; 
had received his literary and legal education at Yale University : had been one 
of the leading lawyers in Henry County at the time that its bar ranked second 
to none in the State; had been a leader in the political iife of his county when 
Henry had more influence per capita than probably any other county in Tennes- 
see, and had represented his county in both houses of the Tennessee General 
Assembly, when the loss of his hearing- necessitated his abandonment of the law- 
after only twenty years of practice of that profession. Mr. L. P. Janes was 
educated in the grade and high schools of his native city, having finished the 
course in the latter at fourteen years of age. From the Paris High School 
Mr. Janes went to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where he finished 
in 1889 at only sixteen years of age. In 1892 the family moved to Paducah, 
Kentucky, where Mr. Janes went into the furniture business. He remained in 
that line in Paducah for fifteen years, and then in 1907 came to Memphis and 
joined the forces of the Memphis Furniture Manufacturing Company in August 
as city salesman. Mr. R. G. Morrow had established that business fifteen years 
previously and in Mr. Janes he quickly recognized a valuable addition to the com- 
pany's personnel. Mr. Janes brought to the furniture company's organization 
a thorough knowledge of furniture, indomitable energy, sterling integrity, abso- 
lute honesty, rare business acumen and a delightful personality. A natural 
salesman, it was but a detail for him to master the manufacturer's end of that 
profession. He soon mastered the other lines of the business and his promo- 
tion was rapid. He rose step bv step until he became the vice-president and gen- 
eral manager of the company- For the past several years he has been a tremen- 
dous factor in the rapid growth of the Memphis Furniture Manufacturing Com- 
pany, recognized as one of the largest and most successful concerns of its class in 
the country. Hence it was but natural that when Mr. Morrow died, Mr. Janes, 
in July, 1920, should be elected to succeed him as president of the company. 
Mr. Janes and Miss Edna Katie Grace were married October 5, 1895. They 
have one child. Leonard Palmer Janes, Junior, now a student at the University of 
Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee. 



764 




L. P. JAM'S 



765 



Malk C. feme* 



W 



)ALK CLARIDGE JONES, architect, Memphis, Tennessee, is 
native of Memphis, where he was born October 21, 1874, the 
son of Jasper Newton and Mary Jane Jones. He attended 
the city schools and upon the completion of his course in them 
he entered the office of M. H. Baldwin as a draftsman. 
Later he worked in the same capacity for Major C. C. Burke 
and still later for H. J. Hain. Having had eight years practical experience 
and study along the line that he had chosen for his life work, Mr. Jones began 
the practice of his profession and from the start has succeeded, until now he is 
recognized as one of the leaders in that in the Mid-South. He is the senior 
member of the firm of Jones & Furbringer. For many years he has been the 
architect for the City Board of Education, and in that capacity he has designed 
the recent buildings of the board, not only so as to be economical of construc- 
tion, but also to be beautiful to behold, containing the best safeguards for the 
protection of the lives and health of the pupils and the most approved arrange- 
ment for the modern systems of teaching. In fact, the published report of the 
recent survey of the Memphis school system by Dr. Bunker of the United 
States Bureau of Education contains the highest tribute to the Rozell School as 
a model of arrangement no matter what might be the system to be used in the 
building. Mr. Jones designed and had charge of the construction of the North 
Memphis Savings Bank building on Main Street and Adams Avenue, one of 
the most artistic of the smaller skyscrapers in the city. He also had charge of 
the erection of the Rex Club building on Dunlap Street and Madison Avenue 
and the massive Masonic Temple. The Christian Science Church, fronting on 
Forrest Park, is also his design. However, the most beautiful building that he 
has erected and the most classic in the city is the Jewish Synagogue, on Poplar 
Avenue and Montgomery Street, which follows closely the lines of the St. 
Sophia Mosque in Constantinople. He now has charge of the plans for the new 
Colonial Country Club and the Ridgeway Club; the Stratton Station, the big 
warehouse to take care of the Stratton grocery, hardware and Piggly-Wiggly 
interests here. He also has charge of the building which the Simmons Hardware 
Company of St. Louis plans to erect on Tennessee Street in which to house its 
Memphis branch. But his biggest present design is for the system of buildings 
to compose the Oakville Sanitorium for tubercular patients which he has designed 
to be the most complete of any in the country for that especial purpose. Mr. 
Jones is a member of the American Institute of Architects, of the Colonial 
Country Club, of the Rotary Club, of the Chamber of Commerce and of the 
Memphis City Planning Commission. He and Miss Sophy YVinkelman were 
married March 7, 1900. Their children are Henry Winkelman and Walk G. 
Jones, Junior. 



766 




W \I.K C. JONES 



767 



M. OT. 3Tofins;on 




lILLIAM WOODY JOHNSON, Memphis, Tennessee, one of 
the leading manufacturers of ice in the Mid-South, is strictly 
a self-made man. in that he has made his own way in the 
world from the time that he was fourteen years of age and that 
he has forged his way to the head of a chain of useful, success- 
ful and growing enterprises. He was born in Burleson County, 
Texas, November 20, 1866, the son of Isaiah Woody and Sarah (Phears) John- 
son. His paternal grandfather was the Reverend Thomas E. Johnson, who moved 
from southern Georgia to Brenham. Texas, in 1845. the year when the Lone Star 
of the Republic of Texas joined the constellation of the United States. Mr. John- 
son's mother was a sister of Thomas Phears, official surveyor of Washington 
County, Texas. Mr. Johnson received little education except in the wide school of 
experience. He went to school for a short time in Austin and in Kansas, where his 
father lived for a time, and learned some grammar and mathematics under Pro- 
fessor Wallace at Austin. At the age of fourteen he was a farm hand and at 
sixteen a sheep rancher, and at eighteen he was an employe of the Austin Street 
Railway Company, working an average of seventeen hours per day at $1.35. But 
out of this small wage he saved money. A year later he began his career as an ice 
man in the capacity of driver of an ice wagon for the Lone Star Ice Company 
of Austin, Texas. He followed this vocation for ten years in Austin. San 
Antonio and Corpus Christi. By that time he had become inoculated with the 
political germ and was elected alderman in San Antonio. Later he was citv 
clerk, chief clerk to the district clerk and city tax collector. This political lite 
looked at the beginning like a good job. It was easier than the work on the ice 
wagon and the pay was more, but at the end of six years in public office he had 
to borrow enough money to get out of San Antonio. In the meanwhile Mr |olm- 
son had studied law and been admitted to the bar, but had never practiced. He 
came to Memphis in 1903 and superintended the erection of the Tennessee Ice 
Company's plant on Linden Avenue and took the management at $100 per month 
and a share of the profits. The daily capacity at the beginning was ninety tons 
of ice. Now it is one hundred and seventy-five tons. Ten years later he built 
the Valley Ice plant on Alston Avenue. In 1911 the Linden Xatatorium was 
added to the Tennessee plant, and in the same year he built the Delta Ice 
Company's plant at Vicksburg, Mississippi, now one of the best equipped plants 
in the State. In 1917, he organized the Ouachita Ice & Fuel Company of Mon- 
roe, Louisiana. He is vice-president of the Memphis concerns, president of 
the others, and general manager of all of them. He and Miss Carrie Yoss of 
Austin were married in 1890. They have five children and live at Macon Road 
and Highland Avenue in one of the nicest country homes around Memphis. 



768 




W. \\. |( )HNS< )N 



769 



3. AC. 3 tnkim 




^AMES TALMAGE JENKINS, Clarksdale, Mississippi, who 
claims the distinction of having the most remarkable record 
ever made by any man in the South in the line of writing life 
insurance, is one of the livest wires in the live city of Clarks- 
dale. He is a native of the Mississippi Delta and has spent 
his entire life within a short distance of the place of his birth. 
Mr. Jenkins was born in Lyon, Mississippi, July 18, 1883, the son of Napoleon 
Bonaparte and Nance Joe Anna Jenkins. His home was on the edge of what 
is now the splendid city of Clarksdale and it was there that he received his 
early education in the grammar and high schools. From there he went to Mis- 
sissippi College where he finished his education. Returning to the Delta, he 
went into business in the mercantile line in 1905 in Clarksdale. However, in 
1908, he closed that business out and went to work in a store in the same city. 
He continued there until January 1, 1914, when he found the line in which he 
has made such a signal success. It was on that date that he secured the agency 
in Clarksdale for the Franklin Life Insurance Company of Springfield, Illinois. 
Both he and the company realized in a short time that each of them had made 
a valuable find — he. a line which offered full opportunitv for his talents, and 
the company, a man who could and would do things on a big scale. Within less 
than a year after his first connection with the company, he was made agent for 
the entire State of Mississippi. His personal popularity was such that in 1916 
Coahoma County elected him as her tax assessors and he filled that trying posi- 
tion for the full term of four years with credit to himself and impartiality to 
the taxpayers. Mr. Jenkins is the proud. possessor of five silver cups, trophies 
won by his success in writing life insurance. During the three consecutive years 
of 1916, 1917 and 1918, he won the State challenge cup, open to competition 
from every State in the LTnion, and with the third consecutive winning, the cup 
became his private property. On a thirty-days' challenge contest he won the 
cup over the State of Alabama in 1919. During the years 1918 and 1919 he 
held the record over all agents of the company in the United States for the 
largest amount of business written. His fifth trophy is the great President's 
Cup, and that Mr. Jenkins brought to the Delta of Mississippi by writing for 
the company $100,000 of business during five specified days in the year 1919. 
He is a member of the Rotary Club of Clarksdale ; is a Shriner of Wahabi Tem- 
ple of Jackson, Mississippi; of the Clarksdale Country Club, and of the Baptist 
Church, and has ever been one of the most active figures in the promotion of all 
movements for the upbuilding of Clarksdale and Coahoma County. Mr. Jenkins 
and Miss Effie Turney were married November 15, 1904. Their children and 
J. T. Jenkins, Junior, and Anona Yaught Jenkins. 



770 




J. T. JENKINS 



771 



Jlorrisi lUtot* 



ORRIS LEWIS, Lexington, Mississippi, merchant and banker, 

Mthe most active, progressive and successful man in that por- 
SM tion of the State, was horn July 29, 1873, in Poland. He is 
Wfl the son of Jacob and Emma Lewis. He came to New York 
at thirteen years of age and worked for four years as office boy 
for a wholesale establishment there, receiving his education 
in night school during that time. At the age of seventeen years, he went to 
Sidon. Mississippi, as clerk at $25.00 per month. In 1895. when the people of 
Lexington had hardly recovered from the panic of 1893, he picked that city 
out as the best business site in which to locate and went there with $500.00 
which he had saved, and with his friend. Mr. Sam Hen-man, bought a small 
stock of goods and began merchandising for himself. Then began the develop- 
ment of a genius for business probablv not excelled in the State. Mr. Lewi>' 
vision went beyond the mere selling of goods to those who happened to come to 
Lexington to sell cotton. He went after more cotton and hence more customers. 
The city then was getting only five thousand hales of cotton yearly. He made 
connections with leading cotton firms of this country and Europe by which he 
was able to pay the maximum price for cotton and it was not long before Lex- 
ington was recognized as one of the best markets in the State, and cotton 
receipts grew to over 20,000 bales. In quick succession he organized a com- 
press, a cotton-oil mill and an ice factory, which put new life into the city. In 
1900 his original business had grown to where he incorporated it as the Lewis- 
Herrman Company. He led in the organization of the electric light plant and 
the building of the waterworks and sewer systems for the city, negotiated for 
the sale of the bonds and taking himself what investors were not eager to get. 
In 1905 he organized the Merchants & Farmers Bank & Trust Company with a 
capital of $100,000 which under his presidency has grown to an institution with 
$200,000 capital and surplus and $2,000,000 deposits. In 1912 he established 
the Herrman Grocery Company, in 1914 merged with the Barrett Grocery Com- 
pany into the Gwin-Lewis Grocery Company. In 1915 he organized the LeFlore 
Grocery Company of Greenwood. Mississippi, doing an annual business of 
$4,000,000. He is one of the organizers and directors of the Guaranty Bank & 
Trust Company of Memphis, Tennessee, and president of the Bank of West 
Mississippi. Mr. Lewis took a very active part for the government in all work 
during the World War. Mr. Lewis was married January 18, 1899, to Miss 
Julia Herrman. grand-daughter of the late Jacob Sontheimer, pioneer planter 
and merchant of Holmes County. They have three children : a daughter. Miss 
Fay Emily, and two sons, Morris, Jr.. and Celian Herrman. His beautiful home, 
Faymorcele, named for his three children, is one of the show places of Mississippi. 




MORRIS LEWIS 



773 




Br. J. 3L Jttc<Mee, I r. 

iOHN LUCIUS McGEHEE, JUNIOR, Memphis, Tennessee, 
one of the leading surgeons of the Mid-South, was born in 
Panola County, Mississippi, January 2, 1879, the son of John 
Lucius McGehee, Senior, and Ada Knight (Hartridge) McGe- 
hee. After having finished the schools of Panola County, he 
attended the Memphis Military Institute from 1893 to 1895. 
Then he went to Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi, where he was given the 
degree of bachelor of arts in 1898. Returning to Memphis he entered the College 
of Medicine of the University of Tennessee and in 1901 was graduated with the 
degree of doctor of medicine, his rating in his class earning for him an internship 
in St. Joseph's Hospital. He was there in 1901 and 1902, when he went to Chicago 
and during the latter part of 1902 and in 1903 took laboratory work under Doc- 
tor \Y. A. Evans, formerly of Mississippi and for years one of the leading 
pathologists of the world. In January, 1904, he returned to Memphis and began 
the practice of his profession. The old Memphis Hospital Medical College 
recognized at once his ability in his profession and during the years 1904 to 1906 
he was assistant demonstrator of histology. For the next two years, he was 
assistant in materia medica in the same institution, and for the next three years 
lie was assistant in gynecology. In 1913 the heads of the College of Medicine 
of the University of Tennessee chose Dr. McGehee to fill their chair of operative 
surgery and he remained there until 1917, when on the first of September he 
joined the medical corps of the United States Army, entering the Medical Offi- 
cers' Training Corps at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. He remained there until 
November 8, when he went to Fort McPherson, near Atlanta, where he remained 
until the following Christmas, when he received his sailing orders and upon his 
arrival in France was assigned to French Hospital Number Forty-five, at Yichi, 
where his success in maxillo-facial surgery was so conspicuous that he was 
placed in charge of that important work in American Base Hospital No. 15, at 
Chaumont, General Pershing's headquarters, known as Roosevelt Hospital, in 
which service he remained as long as was necessary after the signing of the 
armistice. He gave his country one month less than two years of his time, 
having been in France seventeen months. Returning to Memphis he resumed 
his position with the college as associate professor of surgery. He is visiting 
surgeon to St. Joseph's, the Baptist Memorial and the Memphis General hospitals 
and chairman of the medical board of the latter. His fellows in 1920 elected 
him president of the Memphis & Shelby County Medical Society. Dr. McGehee 
and Miss Louise Berry of Henderson, Kentucky, were married October 7. 1908. 
Their children are : Lila Hodge and Louise Berry. He was elected a fellow of 
the American College of Surgeons (F. A. C. S.) in 1914. 



774 




dr. i. l. Mc(;khkk. ik. 



775 



Herbert jfloore 




iERBERT MOORE, Memphis. Tennessee, real pioneer of the 
cold storage business in the Mid-South, was born in Newcas- 
tle, Indiana, April 16. 1871, the son of Cornelius M. and 
Elizabeth ( Shonk ) Moore. He got his education in the 
grammar and high schools of Newcastle and at the age of 
seventeen went to work. After following various mercantile 
pursuits he decided in 1897 to go into business. He chose the grocery line and 
was so successful that he soon became ambitious to get into a wider field. He 
had heard glowing accounts of the section of which Memphis is the center and in 
1898 moved here, associating himself with the great grocery firm of Oliver- 
Finnie Company. Here he found an abundant outlet for his energy and ambi- 
tion while his associates soon recognized his industry, integrity and natural 
adaptability. The result was that he soon became a stockholder in the company, 
going into the buying department where his ability and almost insatiable desire 
for work soon made him one of the real powers of the concern. In fact it was 
not long before he became known as Mr. Oliver's right hand man. That was 
a high compliment, for Mr. Oliver was known not only as a great business man 
but one who had unusual ability in choosing men. During their years of close 
association in business Mr. Oliver and Mr. Moore agreed that one of the serious 
needs of Memphis and the wonderful country surrounding it was an adequate 
cold storage warehouse. For year after year they had seen butter, eggs, meat 
and other farm products shipped to St. Louis and Louisville and put into cold 
storage only to be shipped back to Memphis for final distribution throughout 
this territory. As keen business men they considered this waste of money and 
labor deplorable and they were not men to complain of conditions without offer- 
ing a remedy. The result was the erection of the present plant of the Memphis 
Cold Storage Warehouse Company with a capacity of one million cubic feet, 
making it possible to store at one time 700 carloads of produce. Mr. Oliver 
was president of this company while Mr. Moore was secretary and general man- 
ager. From the start the success of the company fully verified the faith its 
founders had in it. While Mr. Moore has had absolute charge of this great and 
growing business he has found time for other business ventures in which he 
has invariably been successful. At one time he owned a large farm in Missis- 
sippi and practiced some of his theories for diversified farming. He is a great 
lover of animals and his office is adorned with pictures of horses and dogs and 
reproductions of great animal paintings. Mr. Moore always has taken a keen 
interest in the work of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce and has given his 
time liberally in many of the campaigns of this organization. 



776 




HERBERT MO< >RE 



777 



Jfranfe 3L Jttonteberbe 





RANK LAWRENCE MONTEYERDE, successful business 

F ; man, former mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, and poet, was 
(Jm born in Memphis, January 4. 1868. the son of Antonio and 
\w Alary Latura Monteverde. He received his education at the 
Christian Brothers College in this city and at the age of fifteen 
years went to work for H. Wetter Manufacturing Company, 
where he spent the early years of his life, as a bookkeeper from 1883 to 1890, 
then being promoted to credit man, in which position he remained until 1898. 
In 1894 he was elected one of the members of the lower house of the State 
General Assembly and served with distinction during the 1895-97 term. In 
fact he achieved his first great local distinction during that time because of his 
refusal to be bound to the wheels of the local political machine which was trving 
to pass some measures obnoxious to the mass of the people. He opposed them 
with much vigor. Upon the completion of his legislative term he resigned his 
connection with the Wetter Manufacturing Company and was chosen chief 
deputy sheriff for Shelby County. He held this position from 1898 to 1906, 
when he was elected sheriff and so satisfactory was his administration of that 
office that he was twice re-elected, serving until 1912. During the three terms 
that he was sheriff, he was efficient for the maintenance of law and order in the 
community. Soon after his first election as sheriff. Mr. Monteverde and Mr. 
William A. McDowell formed the firm of McDowell & Monteverde, funeral 
directors, which from that day to this has been one of the most efficient and 
reliable firms in its line in the city. In 1918 Mr. Monteverde consented to 
re-enter politics when he accepted the election as finance commissioner of the 
city of Memphis in April. He served creditably in that position until August 
of the same year, when, a vacancy having occurred in the mayoralty, he was 
elected by the people to fill it. Thus he had the distinction of being the first 
native born Memphian to become its mayor. Two of the most conspicuous acts 
of his administration were the vigorous co-operation of the city in the cam- 
paign for the eradication of malaria from the Memphis territory, and the defeat 
before the General Assembly of the State under his leadership of the City Man- 
ager charter bill, even though it was backed by the great majority of the local 
delegation. Mr. Monteverde is a member and past president of the local lodges 
of the Elks, Italian Society, Beavers, Owls, Moose and Knights of Columbus, 
and is State president of the last named order. During his entire life Mr. Monte- 
verde has been a voracious reader of good literature, especially verse, and his 
scholarly attainments are shown in his many poems which are published from 
time to time in the press and magazines, as well as in his public addresses. He 
and Miss Madaline Gusmani were married April 23, 1891. E. Wesley Monte- 
verde is their only child. 



778 




FRANK L. MONTEVERDE 



779 



e. &. jiipncu 




S)n\\'IX KELLY MYRICK, Greenwood, Mississippi, largest 

automobile dealer in the State and interested in many enter- 
prises there, has made his own way from a very inauspicious 
beginning to a commanding position in a few years. He was 
born in Bolton. Mississippi, March 6, 1878. the son of Edwin 
xSdCc^s^SS©/ Kelly and Daisy (Knapp) Myrick. The family moved to 
Greenville. Mississippi, when he was quite young, lie attended Tillottson's 
school there, later taking a business college cour-se in Memphis. At sixteen 
years of age. he began his career as clerk in a hardware store in Greenville. 
After fifteen months there, he went to Parkin, Arkansas; where he soon went 
into business on his own account, buying a commissary. After a time he sold 
this and returned to Memphis where he opened a foundry. Then he moved to 
Wilson, Arkansas, serving there as cashier and bookkeeper for Lee Wilson & 
Company. Again he returned to Memphis and on this occasion was office man 
in the old Business Men's Club, now the Chamber of Commerce. Going back 
to the Mississippi Delta, he re-entered business for himself at Berclair, first 
running a general store and to this adding contracts with the Southern Railway 
for supplving it with cross ties. He expanded to the cotton business and bought 
cotton both at Berclair and Itta Bena. At the end (if five years with Berclair as 
his base of operations, he had saved up a little money and in 1910 foresaw in the 
Ford automobile a wonderful business opportunity. He secured the agency for 
Montgomery County and opened business in Winona. Mississippi, with three 
cars and $300 cash capital left after having paid for the cars. However, mom \ 
was but a small part of the real capital which he put into the business. It was a 
mere supplement to his industry, energy, integrity and faith in himself and his 
business. In ten years he has pushed it to where it is the largest Ford business 
in the State, with headquarters in Greenwood since 1913, and branches at Itta 
Bena, tndiariola", Ruleville, Winona and Rolling Fork. He has a contract with 
the Ford Motor Company for between seven and eight hundred cars per annum, 
and the garage which he has for his headquarters in Greenwood, built in 1920, 
is one of the finest in the State for any car. It is of brick, hollow tile and 
reinforced concrete construction. In addition to his Ford business, Mr. Myrick 
is a director in the Greenwood Bank & Trust Company. Lawrence Printing 
Company, I 'eh/ 1'acking Company, Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club. 
all of Greenwood; a director in the Louisiana-Mississippi Automotive Trade 
Association, and a stockholder in the dull AYhittington Dry Goods Company. I Ic 
is a member of the Episcopal Church and the Elks.. Mr. Myrick and Miss Annie 
Lewis Gentry of Frankfort, Kentucky were married November 29, 1917. They 
have one child. Annie Lewis Myrick. 



780 




!•'.. K. MYRICK 



781 



Br. Militant M. i?aslj 



jILLIAM BREHOX NASH, Stanton, Tennessee, physician, sur- 
geon and land owner, is descended from two of the oldest and 
W)|u) most refined families in West Tennessee. He was born in 
[So) Stanton, July 6, 1S91, the son of William Benjamin and Nan- 
nie B. (Somervell) Nash. His grandfather, Henry Morton 
Nash, moved to the Stanton neighborhood many years ago 
from Arkansas and was one of the active and influential men in the develop- 
ment of that vicinity. His father was a splendid type of manhood mentally, 
morally and physically. The influence of his life was for those things which 
were highest as a Christian and a citizen. His mother's father, Jo B. Somervell, 
was of the family by that name which was prominent in Scotland and England; 
stood out conspicuously in the colonial and early statehood days of \ irginia for 
its refinement, culture and vigor, and whose members were pioneers in Haywood 
and Fayette counties, Tennessee, where all of them have lived up to the tradi- 
tions of the family. After having finished the courses at the Stanton public 
schools, Doctor Nash went to the Webb School at Bellburkle, Tennessee, and 
then to Vanderbilt University in Nashville with a view of taking both the literary 
and medical courses, but at the end of the first term his father died and the lad 
was compelled to return home to look after the estate. After a year he returned 
to Va'nderbilt, but again at the end of the term he was compelled to return to 
Stanton for the same reason as previously. However, by 1911, he was able to 
return to Vanderbilt and remain there until 1915 when he was graduated. He 
entered the practice of his profession of medicine at once in Stanton and success 
attended his efforts from the beginning. His practice grew steadily until the 
spring of 1918. His country then called for his profession in the World War. 
He enlisted, spent two weeks at Camp Greenlief and then was rushed to the 
other side, although other doctors had been there for months hoping for a 
chance to go to the scene of action. He was attached as a first lieutenant 
to the Sixteenth Royal Horse Artillery of the British Army, a cavalry command 
converted to light artillery and having the dangerous assignment of always being 
in the front of every advance breaking up nests of machine guns. He served 
with the Australians in the horrible days about St. Quentin, and was with the 
English until the armistice, twice having his horse shot from under him and 
once gassed, but although remaining constantly with the front line fighting men 
he was never wounded. He was promoted to captain for bravery on the field 
of battle. At the conclusion of the war he returned to Stanton and resumed his 
practice. Now he lives on the old home place, where his grandfather lived. 
Doctor Nash and Miss Mary Nolen Williams of Stanton were married May 15, 
1918. He is a member of the Kappa Alpha and Phi Chi college fraternities. 



782 




DR. WILLIAM B. XASII 



783 



JUnbreto <&ut}tn 



INDREW OUTZEN, retired. Earl. Arkansas, was born January 

A ; , 6. I860, the son of Jorgen Christien and Louise (.Iversen) 
mfi Outzen, in North Schleswig. a German province from 1864 
M/^/ until the ratification of the treaty of Versailles, but previously 
Danish and in heart always Danish, as shown by the recent 
referendum in which it overwhelmingly voted to return to its 
original nationality. .Mr. Outzen's ancestors were all Danish. Mr. Outzen 
received his early education in the public schools at home, but at the age of 
sixteen years decided to seek a wider field for his operations than he could see 
in Denmark. He arrived alone in the United States in f.une 1876, and went 
first to St. Charles, Missouri, where he had a relative, but the following year 
he went to Texas, and there entered the line which became his life w^ork and in 
which he achieved such signal success. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Rail- 
road was building to the Southwest and he engaged in constructing it. He spent 
three years in that line of work in Texas and then moved to Arkansas, where 
in 1882 and 1883 he was engaged in the construction of the St. Louis-South- 
western Railroad between Pine Bluff and Camden, Arkansas. On the comple- 
tion of that contract, he moved to Memphis, which was his home for more than 
a quarter of a century, although most of his time was spent in the big camps 
where he was working. He came here just as the Louisville, New Orleans & 
Texas Railroad (now the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad) was being con- 
structed through the Mississippi Deita, and as Major Dabney was doing his 
heavy earth work in erecting the Upper Yazoo levees. For years he was one of 
the largest, most efficient and honest contractors on those big works. Lie 
remained in that line of work out of Memphis until 1910, when he bought the 
plantation of Judge Andy Martin on Black Oak Ridge, some eight miles north 
of Earl, unsurpassed in any of the Mississippi River deltas for the quality and 
lay of the land. The only objection to it was the one that lav against all delta 
lands at that time unless they were situated with a depot at the gin. It was the 
horrible state of the roads that caused Mr. Outzen to move to Earl, his sons 
and their associates now owning the plantation. He thought that he had retired, 
but his wide experience as a contractor and his sterling honesty made him the 
logical man for the big system of roads mapped out for that section of Critten- 
den County and he accepted the presidency of Road District No. 6 and under 
his able direction more and better gravel roads have been constructed during 
1919 and 1920 about Earl than probably anywhere else in the lowlands. He 
also is president of the Earl Water & Light Company. Mr. ( hitzen and Miss 
Annie Sophie Johnson were married in Memphis April 8. 1885. They have two 
sons, Robert C. Outzen and George L. Outzen. 



784 




ANDREW oi'TZEX 



785 



3. iH. pepper 




RCHIBALD AIcDOWELL PEPPER, lawyer, planter and 
banker, Lexington, Mississippi, was born in that city April 23, 
1870, son of Captain Daniel Gilbert and Mary Emily ( Stans- 
bury ) Pepper. His education was in keeping with the tradi- 
tions of his family. After the public schools he was prepared 
for college at Webb School, Bellbuckle, Tennessee, thence to 
Princeton University and thence to the summer law school of the University of 
Virginia, entered University of Mississippi, where he received his degree of 
bachelor of laws in June, 1895. During the four years, 1890 to 1894, that 
Mr. Pepper was earning his degree of bachelor of arts at Princeton, he had the 
privilege of personal class instruction in political science and jurisprudence 
under President Woodrow Wilson, who was then professor of political science 
in that institution. During his senior year, Mr. Pepper was president of the 
Southern Society at Princeton, and in that connection as well as in class work 
he and Professor Wilson formed a friendship ,which still exists between them. 
At Princeton Mr. Pepper was a member of the University Cottage Club, a social 
organization, and of the American Whig Society, a literary society. He also 
took an active part in the athletics of the university. While at the University of 
Mississippi, he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. In the 
fall of 1895 Mr. Pepper and E. F. Noel formed at Lexington the law firm of 
Noel & Pepper. Mr. Pepper managed his partner's campaign for governor in 
1907, and when Governor Noel assumed the chair of office in January, 1908, the 
firm was dissolved and Mr. Pepper and his father-in-law. Judge J. B. Boothe 
of Sardis, Mississippi, formed the firm of Boothe &: Pepper at Lexington. When 
Governor Noel's four-year term expired, he returned to Lexington and the firm 
became Noel, Boothe & Pepper, which it remained until 1915, when Governor 
Noel again retired and the firm again became Boothe & Pepper. It is local 
counsel for Illinois Central and Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroads and for a 
number of banks in Holmes County, and also enjoys a large general practice. 
He is a member of the Episcopal Church, and is chancellor for the Episcopal 
Diocese of Mississippi. He is a member of the Society of the Sons of the 
American Revolution. During the World War he was government appeal agent 
for his local draft board and active in all patriotic work. He is the father of 
the Holmes County good roads movement and system. Mr. Pepper has never 
sought nor held office, though often urged to do so. He has been tendered and 
refused the appointments of both the Circuit and Chancery Court judgeships of 
his district. Mr. Pepper and Lillian Boothe of Sardis were married April 14, 
1897. Mrs. Pepper is a graduate from the University of Mississippi, a member 
of the Societies of Colonial Dames and Daughters of American Revolution. 
Their only children, two sons, are both dead. 



786 




A. M. PEPPER 



7X7 



C. €. $tgforfc> 




LARENCE E. PIGFORD, lawyer, banker and publisher. Jack- 
son, Tennessee, was born in Lauderdale County, Mississippi, of 
Scotch-Irish ancestry, November 11. 1873. He is the son of 
James Farrar and Martha ( Delk) Pigfbrd, both of his grand- 
fathers having been planter-- in Mississippi. He attended the 
public schools at home until he was fifteen years of age and 
then moved with his father's family to Jackson. There he attended Union Uni- 
versity from 1888 to 1893, when he was graduated with the first honors of his 
class, capturing the Strickland medal for oratory. From early life he was ambi- 
tious to be a lawyer, but the size of the family and the state of its finances were 
such that he declined to accept any assistance from his father in getting his legal 
education. Instead he went to work keeping books for a lumber company and 
by September, 1895, had saved enough with which to enter the law department 
of Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee, where under the late Nathan 
Green and Doctor A. B. Martin, he completed the course with the degree of 
bachelor of laws in 1896. He returned at once to Jackson and began practicing 
law. in which profession he has risen steadily until he now is recognized as one of 
the leading lawyers of the State. Soon after leaving law school he served several 
terms as city attorney and as such compiled its code of laws, the first codification 
for fifteen years. His work has been an authority ever since its publication. 
Save for a partnership from 1903 to 1 C X)7 with Mr. Tohn P. Mallory. surviving 
member of the firm of Caruthers & Mallory, Mr. Pigford has practiced alone. 
While sitting as special judge on the Court of Civil Appeals, he handed down a 
very important decision in the case of George R. James vs. Railroad holding 
that equipment- of a non-resident railroad passing through the State in inter- 
state commerce is not subject to attachment. One of his most notable recent 
cases was as counsel for J. W. Wright of Alabama against the Birmingham & 
Northwestern Railroad, which Mr. Wright, as contractor, had built from Jack- 
son to Dyersburg. The Tennessee Chancery and Supreme Courts held that 
Wright could not maintain his suit because he had not paid the non-resident con- 
tractor's privilege tax, but the L'nited States Supreme Court on appeal held the 
tax discriminatory and Wright obtained a large judgment. Mr. Pigford is 
vice-president of the Peoples Savings Bank; president and principal owner of 
the Jackson Sun and president of the Central Oil Mills. He is attorney for 
many of the larger financial interests of Jackson. He and Miss Sarah Person 
were married in 1907. They live at his country place. Chevy Chase, in a colonial 
home, the mural decorations of which, by a Belgian artist, have attracted wide 
attention. < hi the near two hundred acres of land surrounding his residence 
Mr. Pigford finds relaxation in growing alfalfa and clover and in raising 
blooded cattle and other stock. 



788 




C. E. PIGFI >RD 



789 



Jf . I. $ittman 





1ELDIXG LUNSFORD PITTMAN, business man. Union 

F. City, Tennessee, with no opportunity in life save what his 
(gS own industry carved out for him, has attained a success while 
(w young in years, which any man might well be proud of having 
attained at the end of a long career with an auspicious begin- 
ning. He was born September 18, 1886, on a farm in Gibson 
County, Tennessee, the son of George and Letlia (Goodman) Pittman. He 
attended school for three or four years, worked as a farm hand until he was 
twelve years of age, and then turned his face to the West. He landed in 
Greenville, Texas, and the first position that he saw open was as dishwasher in 
a cafe. Being young and without funds, he took that job to tide him over until 
something better could be found. He remained there for six months and then 
moved on to Cresson, where he connected with a ranch as a cow-puncher. For 
two yeai> he was a rough rider on the range, herding the longhorns and enjov- 
ing the spring roundups and the branding of the yearlings. The pay was not 
enough to make him walk lopsided in carrying a month's wages in one pocket, 
but he learned to be a quick judge of livestock, which, in later years, became a 
valuable asset to him. Two years on the range was enough and he proceeded to 
Cleburne, where he spent a year as fireman in a cottonseed oil mill and gin 
combined. There also he acquired information which later he was able to cap- 
italize. Then he went to Godley where he was associated with the Godley Mill 
& Elevator Company until 1910, when he reached the conclusion that Tennessee 
was a better State than Texas. He returned to Milan where he became con- 
nected with the Fuqua Cotton Company of which he was manager until 1913. 
Then he moved to Union City, forming a connection with the Lake County 
Manufacturing Company. Ever since that time he has been the manager of 
that company's cotton business. Two years later he went into business for 
himself as a broker in the products of cottonseed and in fertilizers and he has 
developed that line until now he has one of the best businesses of its class in 
West Tennessee. To these he has added dealing in livestock on an extensive 
scale, and he is equally as good and quick a judge in that line as he is in cotton 
and its products. During the war he served by appointment of Governor Rye 
as first lieutenant in the State Guards, and later was a colonel on the staff of 
Governor Roberts. He was elected mayor of Union City January 5, 1918, and 
so efficient and popular was his administration that he was re-elected in 1920. 
He is a Shriner ; thirty-second degree Mason; past exalted ruler of the Elks; 
past noble grand, past council commander and past manager of Jurisdiction "C" 
of the Woodmen of the World. Mr. Pittman and Miss Linnie Threlkeld were 
married June 25, 1913. The union has not been blessed by a child. 



^90 




F. L. PITTMAN 



791 



ittrs. 3teaac &tt$t 




jRS. ISAAC REESE, Memphis, Tennessee, for many years one 
of the most conspicuous leaders among the women of the State 
for all that is charming in society, useful in clubs and progres- 
sive in politics, comes honestly by her ease and grace of man- 
ner and her keenness of intellect. She was born as Mis< Lulu 
Colyar in Franklin County, -Tennessee, February 25, 1860, the 
daughter of Colonel Arthur St. Claire Colyar, a grandson of General Arthur 
St. Claire of the American Revolution and himself for more than half a century 
one of the most vigorous and attractive public men of the State: a member of 
the Confederate Congress and Andrew Jackson's most accurate biographer. 
His mother was Miss Agnes Erskine (Estille) Colyar, a daughter of Doctor 
Wallace Estille. for years one of the leading physicians of the State. Colonel 
Colyar gave his daughter a liberal education, first by private tutors at home and 
then in Ward School in Nashville, where he had moved his residence upon the 
dissolution of the Confederate Congress. At the age of seventeen years Alis- 
Lulu Colyar took her first prominent part in public affairs. The Hermitage, 
General [acksbn's home near Nashville, was in the scales and she with other 
women went to the General Assembly of the State and finally secured an appro- 
priation to acquire that sacred property for the State and preserve it fur pos- 
terity. Miss Colyar and Mr. Isaac Reese were married February 13, 1S78. 
Their home in Nashville soon became the social and educational center of the 
city. Yanderhilt University professors, society leaders and thinkers of the city 
to the number of even three hundred made her Friday evenings "at home" 
resemble the Parisian salons of the "ancient regime." During a large portion of 
the year 1899, Mr. Reese was in business in Paducah, Kentucky, and there 
Mrs. Reese continued the same form of entertainment that she had conducted 
so successfully in Nashville. She also organized the Delphi Club which has 
ever since that time been the most progressive woman's club of that city. In 
1900 they moved to Memphis and Mrs. Reese at once became one of the leaders 
in the literary and civic life of the community. She was active in the Federation 
of Women's Clubs and served four years as the head of the Nineteenth Century 
Club. She was a pioneer for equal suffrage, and has had the satisfaction of see- 
ing the State Federation reverse a suffrage vote of ninety-three nays and seven 
ayes into an overwhelming majority of ayes and the State General Assembly 
give women the ballot. She led the fight for women on the City Board of 
Education and was one of the first two elected to membership on it. She has 
fought activelv for free textbooks and anti-child-lahor laws. Mr. and Mrs. 
Reese had four sons: William Isaac, who lives in New Mexico: Erskine St. 
Claire, deceased; Colyar of Memphis, and Captain Isaac, who was killed in 
France. 



792 




MRS. ISAAC REESE 



793 



Colpar &eesc 





OLYAR REESE, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the most suc- 
cessful and widely known of the younger business men of the 
m (?A city, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, March 21, 1887. His 

V^y< wJ father, Mr. Isaac Reese, and his mother, the former Miss Lulu 
Colyar, are of two of the most distinguished and talented fami- 
lies of Kentucky and Tennessee. Mr. Isaac Reese was a native 
of Bowling Green, Kentucky, and for a number of years in that State as well as 
since he has moved to Memphis, was a large factor in the coal business. Mrs. 
Reese is a daughter of the late Colonel Arthur St. Claire Colyar of Nashville, 
for many years one of the conspicuous figures in the public, social and literary 
affairs of the State. Her grandfather was General Arthur St. Claire of the 
French revolution. Her mother was a daughter of Doctor Wallace Estille, one 
of Tennessee's most talented physicians. Mrs. Reese inherited the brilliance of 
her ancestors and their taste for public affairs and literature, as well as their 
efficiency in those lines, and their rare culture. Mr. Coylar Reese lived for a 
time with his parents in Paducah, Kentucky, but they moved to Memphis when 
he was a mere child and he grew to manhood here. He attended the public schools, 
in Memphis and the University School, and then went to Castle Heights, Leba- 
non, Tennessee, but good as were the educational advantages of those institu- 
tions, they were surpassed by his association with his parents. Mr. Reese went 
into the business world when he was but a lad, his first venture being counting 
transfers for the Memphis Street Railway Company at night. He was connected 
for a time with the jewelry firm of Geo. T. Brodnax, Incorporated, where he 
rose to the position of stock clerk ; traveled on the road for a time as a sales- 
man ; represented as manufacturers' agent a specialty concern and spent a while 
with his father in the operation of the Memphis Stoneware Company. However, 
none of these lines opened the road for the full exercise of Mr Reese's activity 
and energy. He saw that opening years ago in the automobile accessories line 
and organized the Faur-Sixteen Tire & Vulcanizing Company, for which he 
secured the agency for the most popular tire and through which he gave a serv- 
ice which made the firm a success from the first day. When one of the big 
refining companies of the Mid-Continent oil field sought an outlet in Memphis 
for its product, Mr. Reese was given the agency because of his rare combina- 
tion of business ability, wide range of acquaintance and universal popularity. 
He handles this business under the name of Colyar Reese & Company and its 
growth has been phenomenal. He is also director in the Speers Oil & Drilling 
Company. Although often active in politics, he has never sought or held office. 
Mr. Reese and Miss" Aileen Green were married January 12, 1915. They have 
two children: Mary Aileen and Colvar Reese, Junior. 



794 




COLYAR REESE 



795 



$. i. ftemmel 




ARM OK I-. REMMEL, Little Rock, Arkansas, hanker, capi- 
talist, leader in church and Y. M. C. A. work as well as in 
good roads, drainage and all other material progressive move- 
ments, official head of the Republican party in his State for 
many years and yet often named by Democrats for important 
positions, was horn in Stratford. Fulton County. New York. 
January 15. 1852, the son of Goodlove and Henrietta (Bever) Remmel. Both of 
his parents were natives of Germany, hut of those sturdy Teutons who sought 
the freedom of the United States at the collapse of the revolution of 1848 and 
appreciated it after coming to this side. That there is no hyphen in Mr. Rem- 
mel's patriotism is shown by the fact that during the World War Governor 
Brough appointed him a member of the State Council of Defense and he was 
chosen by it as chairman of the committee of 4-minnte men. He organized a 
corps of 175 orators for that purpose and campaigned the State three times for 
Liberty bond sales, being himself the largest individual buyer in the State. 
Air. Remmel was educated in the common schools of his home county, finishing 
his course at Fairfield Seminary at Fairfield, New York. He taught school foi 
a time, lived for three years in Fort Wayne. Indiana, and returned to New 
York City where he engaged in the lumber business. In 1876 he and his brother 
moved to Newport, Arkansas, where they engaged in milling lumber with great 
success. He remained in Newport for twenty years and was one of the most 
active factors in the upbuilding of that community into the fine city that it now 
is. Although a Republican, the citizens made him a member and president of 
their first board of education and kept him there for eight years, and elected 
him twice to the village council, just because they appreciated his ability, integ- 
rity- and devotion to the public welfare. The same appreciation was shown by 
Governor Clarke in making Mr. Remmel a memher of the State Board of Char- 
ities; by Governor Jones in naming him aide-de-camp with rank of colonel in 
the State Guard, and by Governor Donaghey in making him a member of the 
State Capitol Commission. His fellow Republicans have sent him six times to 
their national conventions, thrice made him their national committeeman, once 
elected him to the Legislature, and often made him their nominee for governot 
and hoth houses of the congress. For twenty-five years he has been State man- 
ager of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York. He founded the 
Mercantile Trust Company and was its president for twelve years. He assisted 
in organizing the Bankers Trust Company in 1 ( >14 and has been its president 
ever since. Mr. Remmel was married first March 13. 1878. to Miss Laura Lee 
Stafford of Staunton. Virginia. She died in 1913., and on October 6, 1915. he 
was married to Miss Elizabeth Cameron of Fort Covington, New York. They 
have one son, Harmon I... Junior. 



796 




H. L. REMMEL 



797 



0. JL burner 




SB( IRN J< >NES TURNER, sheriff of Humphreys County, ami 
leading business man of Belzoni, Mississippi-, was born Decem- 
ber 15, 1882, the son of John T. and Lucretia ( Newell ) Turner, 
in Carroll County, Mississippi, where bis ancestors on both 
sides had been pioneers and prominent factors in the early 
development of that county. His mother's father was a colonel 
in the Mexican War and was the first mayor of the city of Carrollton. His 
father's father was a planter. Mr. Turner's father was a soldier in the Confed- 
erate army and died in 1888. The lad grew up on the farm in Carroll County 
and received his early education there until his mother moved to Winona, Missis- 
sippi, in 1900. The following year he took a course in bookkeeping in the Macon 
& Andrews Business College at West Point, Mississippi, and in the fall of that 
year moved to Belzoni, where he went to work in a general store at $35.00 per 
month. He remained there until the first of 1908. when he went into the drug 
business on his own account and in that line he has remained ever since, having 
built up a magnificent business. He is president of the Citizens Building and 
Loan Association, president of the Mississippi Association of Rexall Clubs and 
a director in the Citizens Bank & Trust Company. The country around Belzoni 
had struggled for many years to be made into a separate county with that city as 
its county seat, but it remained for the consummation of their hopes to come m 
1918, when Mr. Turner was in active charge of the campaign for the creation of 
Humphreys County. The county came officially into existence May 31, 1918, 
when Governor Bilbo issued his proclamation to that effect. The governor, in 
connection with the creation of the county, told Mr. Turner that he could name 
all of the officers of the new county except the man for sheriff, at the same time 
handing him the commission to that office. Mr. Turner named all of the others. 
He served out the term as sheriff and tax collector until the next regular election 
in 1919, when he was chosen without opposition for the full term which began 
January 1, 1920, to run for four years. Governor Russell named Mr. Turner 
one of the delegates from Mississippi to the National Good Roads Convention 
in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in April, 1920. In that body he had the distinction 
of being elected a life member, which entitles him to membership in the Missis- 
sippi State Council, and also to membership in the General Council. It is the fixed 
custom of that association to elect but few men to the high honor of life mem- 
bership, and this is done only in appreciation of efficiency in that line by the 
member so honored. Mr. Turner is a member of Elks Lodge No. 473 of Yazoo 
City, Mississippi. He and Miss Annie Spencer were married October 25, 1904. 
They have three sons: Osborn Jones, Junior; Irby, and Thomas Newell. 



"98 




O.J. TURNER 



799 



ft. V. Winkelman 





ENRY TANNER WINKELMAN, president of the Winkelman 
Baking Company, Memphis, Tennessee, has developed in his 

I I Ko native city from the smallest beginning one of the most sub- 

1 \Ml stallt ' a l businesses of its kind in the Mid-South. Mr. Win- 
kelman was born in Memphis, on Vance Avenue, near the cor- 
ner of Orleans Street. October 25. 1870, the son of Henry and 
.Mary (Schlatter) Winkelman. The state of the finances of his father at that 
time was such that he was able to attend school but a short time. At the age of 
nine years, he began selling The Appeal on the streets and soon thereafter went 
to work in the bakery of his uncle, Mr. J. J. Tanner, in a bakery on North Main 
Street, and for whom he was named, and with whom he spent most of his time 
until he became of age. By that time he had learned the art of baking thor- 
oughly and also had developed a confidence in his own ability to manage a busi- 
ness of his own successfully — a confidence which his career since that time has 
amply justified. In 1894 he began business for himself on North Second Street 
at what now is Number 86, operating then as now under the name of the Colum- 
bian Bakery. His close attention to the details of the business coupled with 
his innate honesty made the business a success from the start. It grew steadily 
in that location for six years and then Mr. Winkelman in connection with his 
brother. Mr. James A. Winkelman, who had joined him in the business, organ- 
ized the Winkelman Baking Company of which Mr. Henry T. Winkelman is 
president and Mr. James A. Winkelman vice-president and treasurer. The com- 
pany does a tremendous wholesale and retail business not only in the city of 
Memphis but also in all of the surrounding country, where the reputation of its 
product is a counterpart of the character of the men — second to none in the 
land. Mr. Winkelman has always stood for what was best in politics and has 
always been a staunch Democrat. In 1905 he was a member of the Reform 
ticket headed by the Honorable James H. Malone and was elected a member of 
the City Board of Public Works. He was chairman of the committee of that 
body which put the city market house on a paying basis, and a member of the 
hospital committee which did so much to make that institution useful to the 
community. He was a member of the committee on streets, bridges and sewers 
when the administration secured the application of the front-foot assessment 
plan to Memphis, paved Madison and Union Avenues to Cooper Street and 
made the subsequent paving of the city possible. He is a deacon in the Idelewild 
Presbyterian Church, a member of the leading social and business clubs of the 
city, a director in the Union & Planters Bank & Trust Company and chairman of 
the finance committee of the Tri-State Hotel Company. Mr. Winkelman and 
Miss Arra Bell Cowgill were married October 16, 1906. Their children are: 
Virginia; Arabelle : Henry T. Junior, and James A. II. 



800 




HEXRV T. WINKELMAN 



801 



J. 3L JKHmfeelman 




AMES A. WIXKELMAX, vice-president, secretary and treas- 
urer of the Winkelman Baking Company, Memphis, Tennessee, 
is a native of Kentucky, having been born at Bowling Green, 
May 22, 1866, the son of Henry and Marie (Schlatter) Win- 
kelman. At the age of eleven years he left the school to which 
his parents had sent him and entered a school of experience 
which is one of the most exacting tutors of thoroughness and accuracy. In 
1878 he entered the shop of a printer in Bowling Green with a view of master- 
ing the trade of setting type, then all done by hand instead of largely now by 
the more modern machines. He learned the trade there and in 1884 he came 
to Memphis and was a compositor on the old Appeal, the pioneer paper of Mem- 
phis, then under the able direction of the late Colonel Matt Gallaway. In the 
days of the journeyman printer of the old type, that trade was used probably 
more than any other one by its masters as a means of seeing the world. A com- 
petent compositor could get a jo!) in any city at any time and in the event that 
he did not want to remain there until the next pay day, he could sell his "string" 
and move on. These frequent, almost constant, migrations made them the most 
cosmopolitan men of their times. It was in this way that Mr. Winkelman drifted 
to the Pacific Coast in 1892 and while in San Francisco, he went to work for 
the American Type Founders Company. He remained there with that company 
for three years and then was transferred to St. Louis, Missouri. From there 
he came back to Memphis and here joined his brother, Mr. Henry T. Winkel- 
man, in organizing the Winkelman Baking Company. Mr. Henry T. Winkel- 
man is president of the company and Mr. James A. Winkelman holds the other 
offices necessary to its organization. They have made of it one of the leading 
institutions of the kind in the South and its product has been a synonym for 
cleanliness and wholesomeness in the households of Memphis for many years. 
The company does a tremendous wholesale and retail business and has been so 
ably managed by the two brothers that they have not only been of immense service 
to their community but at the same time have amassed fortunes for themsehes. 
During the World War, Mr. Winkelman devoted a great deal of his time and 
was of great value to the government in working out the food problems, lie 
represented the bakeries on the Shelby County Food Administration, and was 
district chairman of the War Emergency Council of the Baking Industry. He 
was president for two terms of the Southeastern Association of the Baking 
Industry. Mr. Winkelman and Miss Guida Matilda Eliel of Bloomington, Illi- 
nois, were married June 1, 1899. They were a devoted couple until death claimed 
her December 22, 1919. She had been a consistent Red Cross worker and also 
drove her machine in the War Motor Corps service. 



802 




A. WINKELMAN 



803 



Wl. S. OTebster 




II.I.IA.M ARTHUR WEBSTER, .Memphis. Tennessee, head 
of the William A. Webster Company of this city and a num- 
ler of other large manufacturing concerns in various por- 
tions of the United States, all making medicines, was a pioneer 
in the South in the opening of that line of industry. The 
plant which he installed in Memphis was the first in the entire 
South to be devoted to that line. Mr. Webster is a native of the State of Mis- 
souri, having been born on a farm near Wcatherby. the son of Hiram Fletcher 
and Nancy Jane (Hargis) Webster. He received his early education in the 
common schools at home and then took the academic course at the Missouri 
Wesleyah College at Cameron. He then selected for his life work the line in 
which he has proven such a success, and with the view of perfecting himself 
in that line, he went to St. Louis, Missouri, where he completed the course in 
the St. Louis College of Pharmacy in 1896 with the degree of l'h. C. Xot sat- 
isfied with that preparation, he spent the following three years in Barnes Medi- 
cal College in the same city. In 1900, with this foundation for the theoretical 
phase of the business, he began the practical end by forming a connection with 
the William S. Merrell Chemical Company as a traveling salesman, receiving 
Tennessee. Mississippi and Louisiana as the territory which he was to cover. 
Mr. Webster was quick to see the possibilities in this territory for that line of 
articles, and also realized that Memphis was the point from which to supply it. 
In 1902 he severed his connection with the Merrell company and came to Mem- 
phis where he promoted and organized the Memphis Drug Company, wholesale 
druggists. This firm later became the Lillybeck Drug Company, and at present 
is known as the Ellis-Jones Drug Company, a half -million dollar corporation, 
doing a tremendous business throughout the Mid-South. In 1904 Mr. Webster 
and the late Doctor B. G. Henning promoted and organized The Webster-War- 
nock Chemical Company, now with a capital stock of a quarter of a million dol- 
lars. This was the first plant established in the South for the manufacture of 
pharmaceuticals. In 1909 Mr. Webster promoted and organized The William A. 
Webster Company, now having a capital stock of $250,000 and one of the larg- 
est pharmaceutical manufacturing concerns in the South. Mr. Webster's success 
in both of these manufacturing companies was so marked that in 1914 he pro- 
moted and organized The Direct Pharmaceutical Company of St. Louis. Mis- 
souri, with a present capital of $100,000, and in 1919 he promoted and organ- 
ized The Midwest Pharmaceutical Company oi Denver, Colorado, now with a 
capital of $50,000. He is at present president of the Webster, Direct and Mid- 
west companies. He is a member of the Country. Horse Shoe Lake. Tennessee 
and Shrine Golf clubs. Mr. Webster and Miss Lucy Marion Draughon were 
married December 23, 1918. 



804 




\Y. A. WKBSTKR 



805 



3. Metier 




ILBERT WEILER, who has developed in Greenwood, Missis- 
sippi, a larger and more creditable jewelry business than any 
other city of 12.000 population can boast of. was born in 
Cincinnati, Ohio. July 22. 1855 — the son of Michael and Bar- 
becca (Moss) Weiler. With a public school education he began 
his business career as a messenger boy at the age of sixteen 
years. At twenty years of age he opened a restaurant in Cincinnati and con- 
ducted it four years. But this occupation was too prosaic for one of his tastes, 
and with a prophetic vision, an artistic temperament, plenty of grit and a legacy 
of twenty thousand dollars indebtedness as business capital, he picked the State 
of Mississippi as a winner, with "odds" on the Delta, and Greenwood the "best 
single bet," and today he is one of the world's winners in a race that has been 
strictly "to the swift," and has made the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta the "garden 
spot of the world." Mr. Weiler traveled Mississippi from Coldwater to Jackson, 
including the Delta, from the 70s to '96. It is just forty years since he landed 
in Greenwood, at the hour when the shadows begin to lengthen and grow dim. 
and the ubiquitous toad sings croaking hymns of praise to the rain gods. The 
streets were paved knee-deep with Delta mud — the richest, most sociable and 
soluble soil in the world. There were one church, three stores and eighteen bars 
in Greenwood at that time, for Delta people did not drink water in those days, 
and did not until another Greenwood pioneer, the late and universally lamented 
Charles E. Wright, with true prophetic vision brought in the first artesian well 
of the Delta and added immeasurably to its health and comfort. In '96 Mr. 
Weiler located permanently in Greenwood. From a modest beginning he has 
an establishment and patronage equalled in few cities of less than a hundred 
thousand. It embraces eight department, one specializing in manufacture — 
replete with the latest possibilities in equipment, material and skill, being in 
charge of a former Tiffany expert. It is the only jewelry manufacturing estab- 
lishment in Mississippi, one of the few in the South, and the only one in the 
world in a city the size of Greenwood. It caters almost entirely to the individual 
tastes and demands of some of the most exclusive and exacting patronage in 
the world — the elite of the Mississippi Delta. Another innovation is a mail 
order department. Apart from the fact that he is the pioneer jewelry manu- 
facturer of Mississippi. Mr. Weiler has builded one of the largest retail jewelry 
establishments in the South — a business of abnormal size for any city the size 
of Greenwood. Mr. Weiler is one of the leading members of the Greenwood 
Synagogue ; a thirty-second degree Mason ; a Shriner, an Elk, a Rotarian, a 
director of the Greenwood Chamber of Commerce, and is active in all public 
spirited movements. He married Miss Belle Kronacher April 22, 1892. Their 
children are Millard K. and Miss Louise Weiler. 



806 




A. WEILER 



807 



1. $. Carttorigfjt 




AMES BUFORD CARTWRIGHT, planter, florist, breeder of 
registered cattle and hogs. Bray's Station, near Collierville, 
Tennessee, was born on the old family homestead in that por- 
tion of Shelby County, May 26, 1858, the son of Albert Robert 
and Priscilla Buford (Giddens) Cartwright. On his father's 
side, Mr. Cartwright comes from one of the oldest families in 
the South, pioneers as long as there was a frontier, anil sturdy factors not only 
in the maintenance of new settlements against natural enemies but also for the 
establishment and maintenance of law and order in them. Air. Cartwright's 
ancestor, seven generations back, John Cartwright, was born in 1602 in England, 
where the family dates back to the Norman conquest, with a coat of arms 
bearing the motto "Defend the Fold." John Cartwright was a member of the 
Jamestown, Virginia, settlement in 1623 and possibly one of its organizers. This 
Cartwright's great-great-grandson, Robert Cartwright, born in 1722 in Princess 
Anne County. Virginia, moved with his family and slaves first to Xorth Caro- 
lina, thence to the W'autauga settlement in Tennessee, where he was one of the 
signers of the contract of government in opposition to the British which ante- 
dated the Declaration of Independence. Thence he was one of the party which 
went down the Cumberland River with Colonel Donelson and was one of Robert- 
son's most sturdy defendants of the French Lick settlement out of which Nash- 
ville grew. The grandson of this Robert Cartwright. Albert Robert Cartwright, 
who was the father of James B. Cartwright, moved from Spring Hill, Tennes- 
see, to Shelby County in 1857. The lad grew up on his father's plantation, was 
educated in the grade and high schools of Collierville. The pioneer spirit called 
him to the St. Francis Basin of Arkansas, where he owns two sections of land 
on the Mississippi River near the line between Crittenden and Lee counties. 
He also owns seven hundred acres of land near Centreville, Mississippi, and 
possesses a beautiful tract of land for a home in Shelby County. On these he 
raised not only cotton and corn, but registered Jersey cows and Poland China 
hogs. On December 3, 1889, he married Miss Alice Townsend. She was always 
a great lover of flowers and her private garden, under her skill and energy, in 
which Mr. Cartwright later joined, has expanded into one of the most beautiful 
in this section of the country. They have set aside ten acres of land on which 
there is a magnificent variety of forty-three species of peonies and sixteen hun- 
dred roses, the blossoms of which are sought even in Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. 
Cartwright have five children: Mrs. Brooxie Buford Stewart of Santa Barbara, 
California; Charles Kirby Cartwright; James Monroe Cartwright: Elizabetn 
Cartwright and Albert David Cartwright. Mr. Cartwright is a member of the 
Methodist Church. He has never sought or held public office. 



808 




J. B. CARTWKIGHT 



809 



&bt i&cfmrff 




BE SCHARFF, Memphis, Tennessee, secretary and general 
manager of Kraus &' Company, cleaners and dyers, president 
of the Belgium Cleaning Company and hank director, is a shin- 
ing example of what may he accomplished in the Mid-South 
by early industry and frugality combined with maturing busi- 
ness judgment in later years even by one left an orphan early 
in life and without means or backing upon which to start life. Mr. Scharff 
was born in Memphis, June 7. 1881. the son of Bernard and Atnalia ( Karlaback ) 
Scharff, Mrs. Scharff having been the widow of the late William L. Loeb. 
Air. Scharff received his education in the grammar schools of Memphis, and 
during the time that he was a small boy in school, he went into business on his 
own account. He became the proud possessor of a small wagon, but instead of 
using it merely for playing he worked up a retail ice business, delivering his 
merchandise to the homes of the customers with his wagon before and after 
school hours. However, he was able to go only up to the seventh grade in school, 
for at that time he was left an orphan by the death of both parents, and since 
that time he has made his own way in the world. He was twelve years of age 
when he left the school room and went to work in the laundry of his half-brother, 
Mr. Henry Loeb. then located on the fourth floor of the southeast corner of 
Main Street and Monroe Avenue. Later he went into the shirt-making depart- 
ment which had been added to the business and learned the trade of shirt-cut- 
ting. By the time that he reached twenty years of age, he not only knew from 
collar to tail the shirt business, but he also had saved enough money with which 
to buy a half interest in the Henry Loeb Shirt Company. During the five years 
that he had charge of that firm he conducted it with such success that he was 
able at the end of that time to sell it for a handsome profit. Mr. Heurv Loeb 
and Mr. M. H. Rosenthal bought the firm of Kraus & Company, Air. Scharff 
becoming the secretary and general manager of the firm; Mr. Loeb, the president, 
and Mr. Rosenthal the vice-president. Under his management, Kraus & Com- 
pany has enjoyed a volume of business second to few in the United States in 
that line, while the firm's equipment is superior to any other in the countrv. 
Mr. Scharff is a director in the Liberty Savings Bank & Trust Companv and 
interested in many other local concerns. He is a member of the Rex Club ; 
Ridgeway Countrv Club; I. O. B. B. ; Al Chyniia Temple; Scottish Rite; City 
Club ; Rotary Club ; Memphis Chamber of Commerce and Chamber of Commerce 
of the United States. During the World War he was one of ten cleaners 
selected to control the cleaning and dyeing of millions of pieces of government 
clothing and draft specifications for the industry throughout the land. Air. 
Scharff has two children : Kathleen and Arthur Bernard Scharff. 



810 




ABE SCHARFF 



811 



Br. M. M. Mack 




ILLIAM MARION SLACK, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the 
leading dentists in the Mid-South, for a third of a century 
active for all that tended for the improvement of Memphis, 
socially, in church circles and in clean sports, like so many 
of the other successful and prominent men of the city, is a 
native of Mississippi. He was born in Pontotoc. March 2, 
1862, of the old aristocracy which settled in North Mississippi when the Ghicka- 
saw Indians were there and when Pontotoc, as the site of the land office where 
titles were sought for the fertile tracts which President Jackson had secured 
from the Indians, was the most prosperous and active place in the State of 
Mississippi. His father, Doctor William Lytle Slack, was one of the leading 
men in that section, head of the Baptist Female College, and an intimate friend 
of the Reverend J. B. Gambrell. Doctor Slack's mother was formerly Miss 
Angie Suddoth. He attended the public schools in Pontotoc and then his 
father completed his education in the college of which he was the head, 
Doctor Slack being the only boy who ever was allowed to take the full course 
there. At the age of twenty-one years, he came to Memphis and attended 
Leddin's Business College. Then he went to Friar Point, Mississippi, where 
he conducted a drug store successfully for a time. Deciding upon a profes- 
sional career, he went to New York City and entered the New York College 
of Dentistry and also the medical college of the University of New York City. 
In 1886 he completed the course in dentistry. He lacked but five months of 
having finished also the medical course, but determined upon |the former 
for his profession, he came to Memphis in 1886 and began a successful career, 
never completing the medical course. His talent in the line of his chosen 
profession was recognized almost from the time that he opened his office and 
it was but a short time until his clientele, composed of the best element in 
Memphis and the surrounding country, became so large that it would have 
occupied all of his time and attention. But he realized that no constitution 
could withstand the strain of office work in his exacting line for all of the 
time that clients wanted his services. Ever fond of the forests, fields and 
streams, he arranged his affairs so that he has spent one day out of every 
week either hunting, fishing or shooting, his especial diversion being to match 
his wit against those of the wild turkey. He is a member of the St. Francis 
River, Old River, Lake View and Marked Tree Outing clubs, and formerly 
was a member of the YVapanocca, Big Lake, Menesha, Hatchie Coon and Five 
Lakes clubs. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Knights of 
Pythias, Woodmen, Colonial Country and Kiwanis clubs; has been president of 
the Memphis and Tennessee Dental societies and is a member of the National 
Dental Association. He and Miss Lizzie Lou Craig were married Decem- 
ber 11, 1889. 



812 




DR. W. M. SLACK 



813 



CfjasL ?B. i&tmonton 




HE late Captain Charles Bryson Simonton, Covington, Ten- 
nessee, for half a century conspicuous in public affairs of his 
city, county, state and nation, was born in Tipton County, 
Tennessee, September 8, 1838, the son of William and Cather- 
ine (Ferguson) Simonton. His paternal grandparents were 
John Simonton. a Revolutionary War soldier and patriot, 
and Marthy (Strong) Simonton; and his maternal grandparents. James and 
Catherine Ferguson, nearly all of Scotch-Irish descent. Captain Simonton went 
to Erskine College, Due West, South Carolina, graduating in 1859. When the 
Civil War occurred, he promptly enlisted and was elected captain of Company C, 
Ninth Tennessee Infantry, C. S. A., in which position he served with gallantry 
until the- battle of Perryville where, while leading his command, he received 
a wound which disabled him. In 1873 he was admitted to the Covington bar, 
where he soon took a commanding position which he held until his death, 
June 10, 1911. lie served two terms as clerk of the Circuit Court; one term 
in the Tennessee General Assembly ; two terms, 1879 to 1883, as congressman ; 
was United States district attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, 
and for ten years was president of the Covington Board of Education. An 
able debater and finished orator, he served his party long on the hustings and 
was constantly sought for public addresses. He was a ruling elder in the 
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Captain Simonton was married 
October 16, 1866, to Miss Mary McDill, who was born in Fairfield County, 
South Carolina. April 1. 1S45, and whose life of devoted service to God, home 
and humanity ended February 24, 1918. Their children were : Miss Anna; 
Miss Ella, now Mrs. Mark A. Walker; Miss Nannie May, now Mrs. Jesse 
Noell : Charles Pressley and William McDill Simonton, all members of the 
Southern Presbyterian Church. Charles P. Simonton was elected in 1906 
clerk of the Tipton County Court, and re-elected in 1908, 1910, 1914 and 1918 
without opposition, and was major of the Second Tennessee Infantry, X. G. S. T., 
from 1903 to 1906. Although exempt as a county official, he waived all exemp- 
tions and volunteered for military service in 1917. but was rejjected for physi- 
cal disability and gave a great deal of his time during the World War to 
patriotic duty at home. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Con- 
vention in 1912. He and Miss Eucile Ing Pennel were married April 23, 1913. 
They have one child. Mary Pennell Simonton. William M. Simonton was 
graduated from Cumberland University Law School in 1897, and after a 
course at the University of Virginia, was admitted to the Covington bar, 
where he has been one of the most prominent members ever since. He and 
Miss Sara Galloway of Somerville, Tennessee, were married December 15, 1909. 
He was an elector in 1908 and a delegate to the Democratic National Con- 
vention in 1916. 



814 




CHARLES B. SIMONTON 



815 



3T. Jf. ftunter 




HE late James Franklin Hunter, Memphis, Tennessee, for 

Tn many years a leading banker and one of the most influential 
Wh men in the city, was born October 29, 1856, in the northern 
j^ part of Shelby County, Tennessee, the son of Alfred Douglass 
and Clarinda D. (Weaver) Hunter. The father was a native 
of Dinwiddie County, Virginia, but as a child moved to Ken- 
tucky, and at the age of twenty-one years came to Tennessee, where he was 
one of the early members who composed that refined and virile settlement 
on Big Creek. Mr. Hunter grew up on his father's farm and was educated 
in the Mountain Academy, Tipton County, Tennessee. He studied engineer- 
ing and while quite young entered field work with a party on the old Memphis, 
Paducah & Northern Railroad, now the Illinois Central Railroad north of 
Memphis. However, when he was only twenty-two years of age, he severed 
his connection with the surveying party and entered the office of the clerk of 
the Criminal Court in Memphis as a .deputy under General A. J. Vaughan. 
He remained in that position continuously for sixteen years when, in 1894, he 
was elected clerk of the Criminal Court without opposition and served for 
two terms, giving a clean, honest and efficient administration of the office. 
In 1903 Mr. Hunter and Mr. John R. Pepper were the prime movers in the 
organization of the Tennessee Trust Company, which from the start was one 
of the leading financial and fiduciary institutions in the city and which erected, 
at the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and Center Lane, one of the first 
>kyscrapers in the city. Mr. Hunter was the executive head of this institu- 
tion until 1906, when it and the Union & Planters Bank were merged into the 
Union & Planters Bank & Trust Company, now the leading financial institu- 
tion in the Mid-South. Mr. Hunter was vice-president of the consolidated 
concern for a number of years, for a long time in charge of the savings depart- 
ment. There he was especially valuable to the institution, for a few men in 
the city possessed a wider acquaintance than he did and every one who knew him 
had absolute confidence in his integrity and honesty. Mr. Hunter remained 
with the Union & Planters Bank & Trust Company until 1913, when he 
resigned to accept the vice-presidency of the Mercantile National Bank. He 
remained actively with that bank until November 25, 1916, when he suffered 
a stroke of paralysis from which he failed to recover and to which he succumbed 
July 14, 1917. After retiring from the court clerkship, Mr. Hunter never 
sought public office, but was active for the election of good men to office. 
He was a member of the Second Presbyterian Church, the Country Club, the 
Chamber of Commerce and a Mason of high rank. Mr. Hunter and Miss Flora 
Pulliam were married December 17, 1885. Their children are: Alfred Douglass; 
Miss Elise, now Mrs. Henry Wetter, and Miss Jean, now Mrs. W. L. Williamson. 



816 




wmBmamammmm 

F. HUNTER 



817 



3. Jf . Captor 



ftfj) HE late Albert Franklin Taylor of Lunsford, Craighead County, 
wi Arkansas, was not only one of the pioneers of the northeastern 

Tm/0 portion of that state, but also one of the great factors in 
Wh laying the foundation for the development of that section into 
what it today is — the foundation broad and strong enough 
for the magnificent future which not only is in store but also 
certain for it in the future. Mr. Taylor, like so many of the virile pioneers 
west of the Mississippi River, was a native of Tennessee and his father before 
him was a pioneer in Tennessee. Mr. Taylor was born not far from Perryville, 
Tennessee, December 13, 1824. and died at Lunsford, October 5, 1901, thus 
closing a life of tremendous activity and of value to his community. His 
father, Abner Taylor, a native of East Tennessee, had migrated west at an 
early date and was one of the large slave holders and planters of his section of 
Tennessee. His mother was formerly Miss Polly Baker. It was with her that 
Albert Franklin Taylor, when but a lad of fourteen years of age, went first 
to Arkansas. That was in 1838, long years prior to the formal creation of the 
county in which he later was to be such a conspicuous figure. He spent four 
years in the forests and jungles of the upper St. Francis River, then truly 
primeval, only a limited few of the first permanent settlers of Craighead County 
having preceded him. Then he returned to Tennessee, where he spent three 
years, receiving his education at Jackson. At the age of twenty-one years, 
he returned to the lowlands of Arkansas and literally carved for himself 
name, fame and fortune out of the dense forests. When he went to Arkansas 
there was no Jonesboro, and Memphis, more than sixty miles distant as the 
crow flies, was the nearest point for supplies and market for his products. His 
far-seeing brain worked out, and his indomitable industry and ultimate courage 
put into effect the system of country life nearly three-quarters of a centurv 
ago that the best brains of today agree are necessary for the prosperity of 
the land. He raised at home all that the country produced for its own mainte- 
nance, had livestock for sale and then produced what cotton he could for a 
money crop at the end of the year. His holdings were such that in one over- 
flow of the Mississippi River he lost one thousand head of cattle. In a 
registered short-horn bull, he made the first importation of thoroughbred cattle 
into his section of the State. Once each year Mr. Taylor drove his surplus 
cattle and hauled his cotton to Memphis and hauled his supplies home for 
the coming season. He served in the Confederate Army and after the war 
headed the Ku Klux in restoring order at home. He was a Master Mason and 
always stood out strongly for the moral and material development of his 
country, a trait inherited by the large family which he left. 



818 




\. F. TAYLOR 



819 



Jflr*. 9. Jf . &aplor 



£t?£\ HE late Mrs. Elizabeth Jane Snoddy Taylor, as the wife for 
Wl nearly half a century of the late Mr. Albert Franklin Taylor, 

T$W Lunsford, Arkansas, was one of the strong and useful char- 
aWj acters of that section of the State in its earliest days. It 
was romantic that she and her husband should have been 
born in the same neighborhood near Perryville, Tennessee, 
that he should have left there when she was a mere slip of a girl, neither 
knowing the other, and that they should have met at maturity in what was an 
almost complete wilderness in Arkansas and have become man and wife. 
Mrs. Taylor's parents were of Irish extraction, her father being Forge Snoddy 
and her mother's maiden name having been Sally Hamilton. Her future hus- 
band at the age of but fourteen years had moved from Tennessee into the 
wilds of the St. Francis Basin of Arkansas, and when she was but a very 
small child her parents migrated to what now is Cross County, in the same 
State. Others of her relatives had gone into what later became Craighead 
County, where Rufus Snoddy was one of the earliest permanent settlers, fler 
uncle, Alanson Trigue Snoddy, also was a pioneer in the same settlement and 
later became one of the most substantial citizens and wealthiest men in ihe 
county. It was with him that Miss Elizabeth Snoddy went to live and it was 
at his home that she met Mr. Taylor. Me was then one of the rising young 
stockmen and farmers of that part of the country. They were married June 
8, 1852, at Lunsford, when she lacked but fifteen days of being twenty years of 
age, the day of her nativity having been June 23, 1832. For nearly half a cen- 
tury following the marriage, she was Mr. Taylor's constant companion and 
aid in a most active and successful career, and no small portion of the success 
was due to her management of the home affairs. Her's was the life of the 
pioneer, with sixty miles of wilderness between her and the nearest city. 
Aside from the ordinary household duties, cloth was to be spun for clothing 
the family, candles to be molded, soap to be made and the hundreds of other 
necessities provided which the neighboring store now furnishes for the home. 
Mrs. Taylor died at Lunsford, August 26, 1899, the mother of eight children, 
two of whom, Samuel Elam and Jennie, the only daughter, died in infancy. 
The other six sons grew to manhood, although Alanson Trigue, the oldest 
child, died in 1891, and James W., the third child, died in 1896. The four 
living sons, Forge W., Albert F., John Pervines and Thomas Sloan all live 
at Lunsford. She would have enjoyed living to see the full measure of their 
success. The family owns an aggregate of some ten thousand acres of the 
finest sandy loam land to be found in the world, and the four sons are the, 
leaders in that section of the country for all that tends toward the progress 
of the community and its welfare. 



820 




MRS. A. F. TAYLOR 



821 



€. P. lejttaster 




E 



[ WARD B. LE MASTER, head of 
the real estate corporation of H. L. 
Guion Company, Memphis, Tennessee, 
is a native of Shelby County, where he was 
born December 3, 1859. His parents were 
W. P. and Mary Bennett LeMaster. His 
mother, widowed in 1860, was a woman of 
scholarly attainments and gave Mr. LeMas- 
ter a good education at home. In 1877 he 
went into the firm of H. L. Guion & Com- 
pany as a clerk, and, under la slightly 
changed name has been with it ever since. 
The firm was founded by Mr. LeMaster's 
uncle, H. L. Guion, Sr., in 1869. His son, 
the late Henry L. Guion, one of the most 
upright and popular men who ever lived in 
Memphis, succeeded and at his death in 
1899 left a business fine in volume and ot 
one hundred per cent character for integ- 
rity. Mr. LeMaster succeeded him as the 
head of the firm to which he has added 
greatly in volume and in which he has main- 
tained the same high standards. From time 
to time Mr. LeMaster associated Mr. Adam 
G. Jett and Mr. L. A. Montedonico with 
him and incorporated the firm under its 
present name of H. L. Guion Company. 
Mr. LeMaster has ever taken an active 
interest in politics, but not as a seeker after 
office, although in 1902, when there were 
many important matters before the city gov- 
ernment and a strong demand for good 
business men in office, he consented to 
become a member of the City Board of Public Works. His great service there was when, 
as chairman of the committee on water, he effected the purchase of the Artesian water 
plant by the city. The wisdom of that action is demonstrated daily in the matters of sani- 
tation, economy and service to the people. With all other public service corporations 
demanding higher rates, water rates long remained the same and the quality best served to 
any large city in the world. Mr. LeMaster is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and 
Y. M. C. A., and an elder in the Idlewild Presbyterian Church, a thirty-second degree Mason 
and has always been active in all movements for the material and moral improvement of the 
community. Now he is especially active in the plan to bring the Southwestern Presbyterian 
University to Memphis. He and Miss Louise Patterson, daughter of the late Colonel and 
Mrs. Josiah Patterson, were married October 20, 1887. Their children are Josephine, Joe 
P., Mary, Edward, Jr., and Louise. 



822 



ft. B. Mnov 




H. 



DENT MINOR, lawyer, Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, was born in 
Macon, Mississippi, .March 9, 
1868, the son of Dr. Henry Augustine and 
Mary (Dent) Minor. He attended the pub- 
lic schools of Macon, and the Mississippi 
Agricultural & Mechanical College, a mili- 
tary school, at Starkville, of which the late 
General Stephen D. Lee was president. 
Graduating there in 1887, he taught school 
for one year and then attended the Uni- 
versity of Virginia from 1888 until 1890, 
where he received diplomas in the schools 
of Latin and of French and the degree of 
bachelor of laws. On leaving the uni- 
versity, he went to Northport, Long Island, 
where he was a member of the editorial 
staff of the Encyclopedia of Law until late 
in 1892. The following year he spent in 
Boston, editing a new edition of Woods' 
Railway Law. In 1894 he moved to Mem- 
phis, where he was admitted to the bar and 
began the practice of his profession. Most 
of his work led him into the Chancery 
Court, although, as a local attorney for the 
K. C. M. & B. Railroad, he had much ex- 
perience in the trial of law cases. In May, 
1909, he was appointed chancellor, at 
Memphis, by Governor M. R. Patterson. 
In April of the following year, he was 
elected by popular vote to a full term of 
that office but, shortly afterwards, resigned 
to accept the office of general attorney <it' 
the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company and that of district attorney of the Illi- 
nois Central Railroad Company and of the American Express Company, which offices he 
still holds. He is a member of the law firm of Burch, Minor & McKay; of the American 
and Tennessee Bar associations ; of the Memphis Country Club ; of the Tennessee Club ; 
and of the Lawyers' Club. He served two terms as president of the Tennessee Club and in 
1917 was president of the Lawyers' Club. Though never an office holder except as chan- 
cellor, he was, in his younger days, active in local politics and in 1909 drew the act creat- 
ing the commission form of government for Memphis. He is very fond of the country and 
spends all of his spare time on his farm. On April 28, 1897, Mr. Minor married Miss 
Florence Frayser, of Memphis, daughter of the late Colonel R. Dudlev Frayser. Her death 
occurred in March. 1903. There were two children of this marriage but both died while 
quite young. 



823 



M. C. early 

w 



ILLIAM COLE EARLY, for a 
quarter of a century a lead- 
ing merchant of Memphis. Ten- 
nessee, and one of its most substan- 
tial, correct and respected citizens, now- 
retiring from business, is a native of 
Virginia, having been born November 20, 
1864, at Doylesville. His parents were 
Jeremiah A. and Mildred L. ( Wood ) Early, 
the former a close relative to General 
Jubal A, Early, C. S. A. Mr. Early at- 
tended the common schools at home and 
was a student in the University of Virginia 
during 1883 and 1884. After having com- 
pleted his education there, Mr. Early was 
a traveling salesman for several years and 
then came to Memphis, where he took the 
agency for Cudahy Brothers & Company, 
packers. He rapidly developed this line 
into a general wholesale grocery business, 
organizing some twenty-five years ago the 
house of W. C. Early & Company, later 
incorporated as the \Y. C. Early Company. 
Of unquestioned honesty and sterling in- 
tegrity. Mr. Early also snowed that he pos- 
sessed a high degree of efficiency. These 
traits, used in his business in connection 
with great industry and hard work, sent 
the company rapidly to the front of the 
grocery houses of the South, in which rank 
it remained until January 1, 1920, when 
Mr. Early, having tired of the severe strain 
of so active a business and having accumu- 
lated a handsome fortune, consented to the 
merger of his company with the Stratton Grocery Company, under the name of the Early, 
Stratton Company, now one of the largest grocery houses in the country. Mr. Early is 
heavily interested financially in the new company and chairman of its board of directors, 
but lets others care for the details. Mr. Early is a devoted and active member of the Sec- 
ond Presbyterian Church, in which he has been a ruling elder for many years, having 
previously served on the diaconate. He is a member of the City Club, the Memphis Coun- 
try Club and Merchants' Exchange, and has been a member of the Chamber of Commerce 
since its organization. He is a director in the First National Bank and served for years 
on the directory of the Union & Planters Bank & Trust Company. Mr. Early was mar- 
ried January 12, 1897, to Miss Georgia Brinkley Goodloe, who is of one of the oldest and 
most cultured families of the Mid-South and who possesses a voice of rare sweetness. 
They have two sons, William Cole, Jr., and George G. Early. 




824 



AC. P. Inbretos 




THOMAS BOT'I S 
Memphis, Tennessee, 

twenty years head of 
Andrews Company, leadiiu 



ANDREWS, 

for the past 
The Davis & 
millera and 



feed dealers in the Mid-South, was borri 
in Maysville, Kentucky, December 18, L858, 
the son of Robert Dorsey and Amy 1 1 . 
(Thompson) Andrews. He attended pri- 
vate schools at home and at Flemingsburg, 
and then entered Centre College in Dan- 
ville, Kentucky, in 1875, receiving his de- 
gree of bachelor of arts there in 1879. He 
came to Memphis November 15 of that 
year and went to work for the old Memphis 
& Charleston Railroad. He remained then- 
just three years and then resigned the chief 
clerkship to go with the Memphis Grain, 
Elevator & Manufacturing Company. Ih- 
succeeded the late John K. Speed as presi- 
dent of that company and was its head 
when it was destroyed by fire in September, 
1898. He was general manager of the 
Dixie Mill Company from 1891 to 1895 
and from that date to 1898, he was gen- 
eral manager of the Eagle Mill Company. 
From 1892 to 1895, Mr. Andrews was vice- 
president and general manager of the Em- 
pire Mill, Elevator & Warehouse Company. 
On May 1, 1900. Mr. Andrews in partner- 
ship with Mr. T. L. Davis organized the 
firm of Davis & Andrews. They incor- 
porated the business on March 1 of the 
following year as The Davis & Andrews 
Company, with Mr. Andrews as the president and he has remained in that position ever 
since. The business in milling especially "Dixie" cream meal and as general grain dealers 
lias developed steadily so that for years it has been one of the leaders in that line in this 
section of the country with a reputation second to none for the purity of its products and 
the correctness of its weights. Mr. Andrews is a director in the Memphis Merchants Ex- 
change of which he has been an active member for many years. He is also a director in 
the American Federation of Corn Millers. He is also a member of the Memphis Chamber 
of Commerce. At the university he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta college fra- 
ternity and for years he has been a ruling elder and one of the most active members of the 
Alabama Avenue Presbyterian church. He and Miss Nannie J. Heron of Danville, Ken- 
tucky, were married January 21. 1885. They have three children, all sons: Francis West, 
Eugene Young and Robert Dorsey Andrews. 



825 



&otolett $atne 




T 



\HE HONORABLE ROWLETT 
PAINE, Mayor of Memphis, is not a 
politician, never has been a politician, 
did not seek the nomination for Mayor, but 
when a committee of the best citizens of the 
city asked him, on account of his life-Ions; 
record as a good citizen, his known probity 
and his signal success as a business man, 
to make the race he consented to do so and 
was elected by a handsome majority, re- 
ceiving his heaviest vote in the residential 
wards and where the women exercised their 
first right of suffrage. He assumed the 
duties of his office January 1. 1920, with- 
out a pledge save the official oath of office 
and his administration has been more nearly 
free from politics than any other in the 
memory of the oldest inhabitant of the city. 
There is no indication about the City Hall 
at present of any political machine or any 
desire to erect one. It is more like a big 
business house with a sincere desire to sys- 
tematize and coordinate all departments for 
the sole purpose of greater efficiency. Any 
proposition is weighed upon its merits — not 
by the standard of how many votes its 
proponents may control or by their ability 
to stuff ballot boxes. Mr. Paine was born 
in Memphis, December 22, 1879, the son 
of John J. and Sarah (Rowlett) Paine. He 
attended the public schools of the city, 
graduating in the class of 1896. His first 
employment was in 1896. with the Singer 
Manufacturing Company. After three years there, he went with the then leading whole- 
sale grocery firm of A. B. Treadwell & Company. In 1904 he joined the younger and 
progressive White-Wilson-Drew Company, of which he became secretary and treasurer. In 
1909 he was chosen secretary of the Memphis Association of Credit Men, and the following 
year served as president of that organization. He was president of the Cotton States Mer- 
chants Association in 1916, and at the same time vice-president of the Southern Wholesale 
Grocers Association. Since that year he has been a director in the Tri-State Fair Associa- 
tion. In 1915 he assisted in organizing the Memphis Bureau of Farm Development, of the 
Chamber of Commerce and is still a member of its executive committee. His most con- 
spicuous public service prior to assuming the mayoralty was as United States food admin- 
istrator in 1917 and 1918. He and Miss Annabell Hughes married March 12, 1918. They 
have one child, Elizabeth Rowlett Paine. 



826 



Hem Itanfcg 




L 



EM BANKS, Memphis, Tennessee, 
lawyer, merchant; cotton-factor, plant- 
er and breeder of pedigreed livestock, 
was born at Love Station, DeSoto County, 
Mississippi, March 16, 1870, the son of 
George Thomas and Sallie ( Love) Banks. 
He was educated at Webb's School, Bell- 
buckle, Tennessee, and at Vanderbilt Uni- 
versity, Nashville. Corning to Memphis in 
August, 1892, he began the practice of law 
m the office of Myers & Sneed. Later he 
formed a partnership with Mr. D. E. Myers 
and after the death of Mr. Myers, he and 
Mr. W. II. Ilarrelson formed the partner- 
ship of Banks & Ilarrelson, which is one 
of the leading law firms of the Mid-South, 
specializing in commercial law. Some years 
ago Mr. Banks became heavily interested 
in plantation properties in the St. Francis 
Basin of Arkansas, and with his uncle, 
Henry Banks, organized the Banks Grocerv 
Company and the Planters Cotton Com- 
pany, both of Memphis, the former doing a 
wholesale business and the latter being cot- 
ton factors in the local market. From the 
day that he became interested in Arkansas 
lands, Mr. Banks was a most valuable asset 
to that State through his active coopera- 
tion in the formation of road and drainage 
districts and cooperation with the residents 
in all that was progressive. He was a leader 
in Memphis in the agitation for improved 
farm methods and the raising of better ami 
more livestock and feed for it, with the consequent improvement of the soil, and probably 
was the most efficient and best posted of all of those early advocates along that line. In 
fact Mr. Banks for years has been recognized as one of the most versatile men in this sec- 
tion in the wide range of accurate information in his possession. He owns a magnificent 
estate. Walnut Hill Farm, in the south end of the county near Raines, where he lives and 
specializes in fancy cattle. Mr. Banks has never sought or held public office, but has ac- 
cepted the appointment as one of the commissioners of Tennessee on uniform State laws. 
Mr. Banks was married first on June 13, 1892, to Miss Lilian Fitzgerald, daughter of the 
venerable Bishop O. P. Fitzgerald of the Methodist Church, and after her death be and 
Mrs. Estelle Gildart were married June 27, 1903. Their children are: George Thomas, 
Mary Love, Lem. Emy Lou and William Henry. 



827 



C. 3. Brtce 




c 



HARLES ANDREW PRICE, man- 
ager of the American Car & Foundry 

Company in Memphis, Tennessee, 
was born March 6, 1860, in Detroit, Michi- 
gan, the son of Andrew Jackson and Eliza 
Jane (Thorburn) Price. He was educated 
in the Detroit grammar schools and began 
life with a fast freight line in that city, 
afterwards spending some twelve years 
with a transfer company. In 1899 he 
joined the American Car & Foundry Com- 
pany in Detroit, his first work being in the 
supply department. He remained with the 
company there, in the supply and purchas- 
ing departments, until 1906. when he came 
to Memphis as the head of the local plant 
of the company, of which he has been in 
charge ever since. Since then he has been 
one of the strongest boosters of the city, 
not in the sense merely of talking about 
its glory, but in the real work of giving his 
time and talent to the development of its 
possibilities, mainly in the line of manu- 
facturing. He has been a member of the 
Chamber of Commerce for many years and 
during the days of the chamber's bureau 
of publicity and development, he was one 
of the most active members of that bureau. 
Now he is vice-chairman of the industrial 
division of the chamber, and probably no 
other member of the division has been more 
instrumental than he in the locating of man- 
ufacturing enterprises here. Having been 
engaged in the operation of big plants both in the north and the south, he is able to con- 
vince a prospective Memphian that the advantage of this section, especially in the matter 
of labor is great as compared with the North. Although a large employer of labor in essen- 
tial work, he announced when the World War came on, that he would not ask industrial 
exemption for any employe between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five years. He 
served with rare impartiality and judgment on Shelby County Exemption Board, No. 2. 
and later, with Chancellor I. H. Peres and J. P. Matthews of Oakland, as a member of 
the Advisory Board to the West Tennessee district board. Mr. Price is a high Mason 
and past potentate of Al Chymia Temple, a member of the Rotary Club, Memphis Coun- 
try Club and several outing clubs. He and Miss Letitia Buick were married March 18, 1891. 
They have one child, Miss Helen T. Price. 



828 



fubge H. P. Jflcjfarlmib 




L. 



B. McFARLAND, son of Dr. Felix 
A. and Martha A. (nee Douglass) 
Mctarlarid; of Memphis, Tennessee, 
was born April 7, 1843, in Haywood county. 
He was reared there, attending the publi< 
schools and afterward attending college at 
Florence, Alabama. In April, 1861, he en- 
listed as a private in Compariy A. Ninth 
Tennessee infantry. At Shiloh he was 
made sergeant-major of the regiment, and 
served as such for over a year. He was 
then elected second lieutenant, and soon 
afterward became volunteer aid on the 
staff of Gen. George Maney, serving in that 
capacity until captured, in April, 1865, at 
West Point, Ga. He took part in -(he battles 
at Shiloh, at Perryville, Murfreesboro, 
Chickarhauga, Missionary Ridge, and from 
Dalton to Atlanta, the fight at Atlanta on 
July 22, and at West Point, (la., April 16, 
1895, and was in many minor engagements, 
lie was slightly wounded at Shiloh. He 
served for many years at brigadier general 
in the United Confederate Veterans, and 
delivered the annual address at the reunion, 
in 1910; also a memorial tribute to General 
tied rge \\ . Gordon, deceased commander 
and congressman, and this address was 
made a part of the Congressional Record. 
After the war closed, he moved to Memphis 
and studied law. In 1867 he was graduated 
from the Lebanon Law school, at Lebanon, 
Tennessee, was admitted to practice the 
same year, and opened an office at Memphis. He was general attorney for Tennessee of 
the Missouri Pacific Railway Co., including Iron Mountain, Cotton Belt. Iron Mountain of 
Memphis and the Union Railway Co. (Belt Line), for 18 years. He was commissioned 
justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee several times to hear special cases, and served 
also one term of the court. In 1895 he was appointed and commissioned United States 
attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, but declined the office. He was never a candi- 
date for any office, but active in all civic duties. He was chairman of the committee that 
erected the Confederate Monument in Elmwood Cemetery, and of the committee that erected 
the Tennessee Club building. He was among the earliest advocates of parks for Memphis, 
In 1899 he was appointed a park commissioner and served six years, the two first years 
as chairman. He was married, April 4, 1872, to Miss Ellen V. Saunders, of Courtland, Ala. 
She died in 1900, and in 1902 he married Mrs. Floy Graham Allen. 



829 



ft. $. $fjilltps 



Q.AMUEL HENRY PHILLIPS, mer- 
jj chant, Memphis, Tennessee, although 
a resident of the city for half a cen- 
tury and for the major portion of that 
period one of its leading business men, was 
born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, October 18, 
1853. the son of Samuel William and Sarah 
(Pilkington) Phillips. Mr. Phillips' father 
was born in the ancestral home "Gaile." 
Cashel, Ireland, where his forebears had 
been born for centuries previously- Aside 
from the classic education which the father 
received in Ireland, he took a course in en- 
gineering and architecture. Soon after 
having married, he came to America seek- 
ing a fortune, but lost what he had dealing 
in Chicago real estate. It was then that 
he began the practice of the profession he 
had learned in Ireland. In 1866 he came 
to Memphis to draft a map of Elmwood 
Cemetery, and remained here from that 
time until his death in 1881. The son was 
educated at Girardeau's preparatory school 
and Leddin's Business College here, and 
at the age of eighteen years went into the 
grocery business with the wholesale house 
(if Ford, Porter & Company, later Porter, 
Taylor & Company and still later Porter 
& Macrae. He remained with these con- 
cerns for nine years and in 1880 formed a 
partnership with the late Harvey B. Shanks 
under the firm name of Shanks, Phillips & 
Company. Upon the death of Mr. Shanks 
in 1904, Mr. Phillips succeeded him as president and general manager of the company and 
in that capacity he has made it one of the strongest firms in the South as wholesale grocers 
and grain jobbers, doing an annual business aggregating some four millions of dollars. His 
standing among his associates is shown by the fact that once he was elected president of the 
Southern Wholesale Grocers' Association. During the World War, he served as chairman 
for Tennessee of the American, French, British, Belgian Blind Soldiers' War Relief 
Society, and was chairman of the committee which raised the $25,000 Red Cross relief fund. 
He was a member of the old Chickasaw Guards for forty years, and is a member of the 
Tennessee Club, the Memphis Country Club, the Menesha Outing Club, the Merchants 
Exchange and the Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Phillips and Miss Eletfnor Gilbert Albers 
were married September 30, 1906. Their children are: Eleanor Albers, Blanche Estes and 
Samuel H, Jr. 




830 



ft. P. 3nbcrson 




H 



ARRY BENNETT ANDERSON, 

lawyer and late lieutenant-colonel in 
the American Expeditionary forces, 
Memphis Tennessee, ,\ a native" of Van 
Buren, Michigan, where he was born No- 
vember 5, 1879, the son of Colonel Seneca 
Benjamin and Adelaide (Bennett) Ander- 
son, lie received bis primary education in 
the Michigan schools. The family moved 
to Memphis in 1889, and he continued his 
studies here at the Sigh School, Perry & 
Robinson's private school and at the Chris- 
tian Brothers' College. His degree of mas- 
ter of arts was the last conferred by that 
institution. He completed his literary 
course at the University of Chicago, and, 
following this, went to Columbia Uni- 
versity. Xew York, where he was gradu- 
ated in 1904 with the degree of bachelor 
of laws. lie returned at once to Memphis 
and began the practice of his profession, 
first alone; then with A. M. Patterson; then 
for years with R; Grattah Brown,- under 
the firm name of Brown & .Anderson, and 
since his return from France, alone. He 
has not only succeeded in the law, but, be- 
ing a thoroughly educated man, he has kept 
up his reading until today he is considered 
a man of wide learning and an orator of 
repute in the Mid-South. A Republican by 
birth and rearing, Colonel Anderson has 
been a delegate to most of the State con- 
ventions of that party for the past fifteen 
years. He was selected district elector for Roosevelt in 1904 and for Taft in 1908, making 
brilliant if futile campaigns. He headed the Bull Moose rebellion for Roosevelt in Tennessee 
in 1912, and, as elector for the state at large made a meteoric campaign. He is a member 
of the Lumbermen's Club, the Memphis Country Club, the Masons, the Elks, the Odd Fel- 
lows and the Chamber of Commerce, of which he was the last president elected by popular 
vote of the members. That was in 1912, and the same year he served as president of the 
State Bar Association. Colonel Anderson was one of the first to enlist in the World War, 
and spent twenty-two months in France as judge advocate with the Twenty-Sixth Division, 
closing his career there as officer in charge of rents, requisitions and claims for Base Sec- 
tion No. 6, including the Port of Marseilles and the entire Riviera, where he handled mil- 
lions of dollars. He and Miss Patty Crook of Jackson, Tennessee, were married October 
8, 1908. They have three sons and one daughter. 



831 



3L &. Parboro 




A? 



TONIO SEBASTIAN BAR- 
>ORO, for many years a leading 
business man and good citizen of 
Memphis, Tennessee, is a native of Italy, 
but Memphis has been his home during most 
of the time for more than half a century. 
He was born in Genoa, Italy, the son of 
Antonio and Katherine Barboro, but at the 
age of ten years he came to Memphis. He 
had no opportunity to go to school but re- 
ceived an education under a private tutor 
when not at work. Wide and good reading 
since that time, association with the best 
of people, extensive travels and close ob- 
servation, have made Mr. Barboro a man 
of well rounded and balanced education, for 
he is possessed of a mind accurate and won- 
derfully keen. Mr. Barboro went to 
Arkansas City, Arkansas, then a very lively 
and active place, and spent nine years there 
in the general merchandise business. He 
returned to Memphis in 1877 and founded 
the wholesale and retail fruit and produce 
house on South Main Street which bore his 
name for 43 years. The business pros- 
pered from the start, for Mr. Barboro put 
into it a high degree of efficiency, indefatig- 
able energy, sterling integrity and absolute 
honesty together with a firm determination 
to succeed and to give service. Mr. Barboro 
continued in that location and business until 
the first of January, 1920, then he aban- 
doned the retail branch of his business, his 
firm moving into their new warehouse at the foot of Pontotoc Avenue, a thoroughly mod- 
ern structure especially designed by them for the wholesale fruit and produce line to which 
Mr. Barboro confines his activities. He is still active in the business but confines his time 
now rather to the larger affairs of the concern, leaving the details to younger men. Mr. 
Barboro has never sought or held office, but for many vears has been verv active for good 
government in the city in the hands of honest men. Often he has spent his time and money 
for movements that were good for the city, realizing that his activity would be injurious to 
his business, but believing in the principles involved, he went ahead. He and Miss Ida 
Lavezzo were married in 1885. Their children are Malcolm G. Barboro. director and active 
member of the firm of A. S. Barboro & Co., Inc., and a daughter, Mrs. John D. Canale. 



832 



Herbert <§annatoap 




H 



ERBERT GANNAWAY, one of the 
leading lawyers of .Memphis, Ten- 
nessee, was horn in Nashville, 
Tennessee, November 16, 1878, the son of 
John Edward and .Marion (A'Moss) Gan- 
naway. He finished with honors under 
"( >ld Sawney" at the Webb School, Bell- 
buckle, Tennessee, in 1897, and then went 
to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, 
where he was graduated in 1901 as the 
honor man of the class with the degree of 
bachelor of arts. He earned the Founders' 
Medal, academic department, in his gradu- 
ating year, and also earned Young's medal 
in oratory. He was also editor-in-chief of 
the College Annual. Following his gradu- 
ation he was appointed government teacher 
of English in the Philippine Islands and 
spent the next two years there. Returning 
to the United States he took time to visit 
Japan, China, India, Egypt, Italy, France 
and England, thus making a complete tour 
of the world. He went back to Vanderbilt 
University, where he entered the law de- 
partment, from which he received the de- 
gree of bachelor of laws with honors in 
1904. He began the practice of his pro- 
fession in Memphis in the fall of that year 
in the office of Frank P. Poston. Later he 
was for a time connected with the firm of 
Smith & Trezevant and still later with that 
of Watson & Perkins. He spent six vears 
as attorney in the title department of the 
I '..ink of Commerce & Trust Company, and at the end of that time, February 1, 1917, he 
and Mr. Roy Church formed the law firm of Church & Gannaway, one of the strongest 
law firms of the city and especially valuable to its clients in matters of real estate and 
chancery practice. Mr. Gannaway finds time from his law work to be of valuable service 
to the community, especially through the Chamber of Commerce, of which be has been 
for some years a most active member. He was very useful there in the matter of securing 
the location of an aviation station at Park Field for the United States government, and in 
the transfer of that property for that purpose. Now he is chairman of the law committee 
of the Chamber of Commerce. At college he was a member of the Sigma Xu fraternity. He 
is a member of the Tennessee Club, Egyptian Literary Society. National Geographic So- 
ciety and Travel Club of America. Mr. Gannaway and Miss Elizabeth Kline of Nashville 
were married May 2. 1906. 



S33 



S. J. itoingston 




H 



ENRY J. LIVINGSTON-, lawyer, 
Memphis, Tennessee, was born in 
Brownsville, Tennessee, January 2, 
1875. the son of Henry J. and Tempe 
(Somervell) Livingston. His father was 
for more than a generation one of the lead- 
ing lawyers in Tennessee and for over 
twenty years chancellor of the Tenth dis- 
trict, a man of exceptionally high character 
and lovable disposition. His mother was 
of the Somervell family, which was promi- 
nent in Normandy, participated in the con- 
quest of England under William, and has 
been conspicuous for all that is good in 
Virginia, Carolina and West Tennessee 
since the early Colonial days. After having 
attended private schools in Brownsville, 
Mr. Livingston went to the Webb School at 
Bellbuckle, Tennessee, and from there to 
Vanderbilt University, where he took his 
bachelor of arts degree in 1895 and his 
bachelor of laws two years later. He 
earned bv his scholarship a membership in 
the Phi Beta Kappa society and was a 
member of the Phi Delta Theta social fra- 
ternity. Upon the receipt of his diploma, 
Mr. Livingston came to Memphis and began 
the practice of law. He has risen steadily 
until he ranks as one of the best lawyers 
at the Memphis bar. For years he has been 
a member of the firm of McGehee, Livings- 
ton & Farabough. Mr. Livingston was 
elected attorney for the City of Memphis in 
October, 1916, and served until December 31, 1919. His term of office was at a time when 
the city administration's ship sailed tempestuous seas, but from whatever direction came 
the wind, no one ever suspected Mr. Livingston of being influenced by politics in any legal 
opinion that he rendered. His most conspicuous acts in that capacity were the fights that 
he waged against the raise in gas rates and street car fares. He defeated the raise in gas 
rates, and people who were familiar with the conditions in the street railway fight con- 
sidered themselves fortunate that he held the new rate down to six cents. He was also 
active in drafting the Auditorium and Tuberculosis Hospital bond bills, where for the 
first time both citv and county joined in bond issues for public enterprises. Mr. Livingston 
was married January 27, 1904, to Miss Martha J. Shelby. They have no child. He is a 
member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Memphis Country Club. 



834 



$. Jf. Willis 




H 



ENRY FRANKLIN WILLIS, Tur- 
r'ell, Arkansas, one of the most 
active factors in the development of 
the upper portion of Crittenden County, is 
a native of Mississippi, having been born 
in Ripley, in the year 1878, the son of Cap- 
tain Thomas < ). and Lavina ( Portis) Willis, 
lie attended the public schools of Tippah 
County for a time, but the lure of the active 
world was so strong that at the age of ten 
years he went to work in the office of the 
Southern Sentinel. He mastered the art 
of conducting a newspaper with such rapid- 
ity and had such an ambition to go the front 
that at the age of seventeen years he started 
a newspaper at Amory, Mississippi — the 
Amory Argus-News. He was widely 
known throughout Mississippi as the young- 
est editor in the state. He remained in 
that line of activity for three years and at 
the end of that time reached the conclusion 
that some other line would prove more 
profitable. He turned his attention next to 
railroad work, which he entered in a clerical 
capacity at twenty years of age, and in 
which he remained for ten years. Then he 
went with the Baker Lumber Company and 
worked for it for three years in Crittenden 
County. He had been in the wonderful 
Saint Francis Basin but a short time when 
he foresaw- at least some of the prosperity 
which would come to that fertile section 
just as soon as the lands could he cleared 
and put into cultivation. In 1911, he severed his connection with the lumber company and 
opened a store in Turrell. To the merchandise business he quickly added ginning and 
farming, having acquired some of the best land in that section. In 1919 he sold eight hun- 
dred acres at a handsome profit and he is now rapidly developing the remaining four hun- 
dred acres to a high state of cultivation. Mr. Willis has taken an active interest in politics 
ever since going to Arkansas and in 1917 became a member of the State legislature. There 
he was most active in perfecting the road laws so that the river counties could work under 
them. Now he is secretary of three of the largest road districts in the northern portion of 
the county and the strongest factor there in developing what his country needs most — good 
roads. Mr. Willis and Miss Mary Flynt were married in 1902. They have two sons: 
Henry and John Waldo Willis. 



835 



a;. $. Hing 



THOMAS BROWN KING, Memphis, 
Tennessee, best known to the general 
public tor his church and eleemosy- 
nary work, and for his advocacy of good 
roads, was born in White County, Arkan- 
sas, July 10, 1861, the son of Thomas B. 
and Eliza' B. King. He received his early 
education in the three-months schools of 
his native county, and during the term of 
1880-81 worked his way through the Train- 
ing School for Boys at Murfreesboro, Ten- 
nessee. At the age of twenty years he 
went to work as a clerk in a hardware store 
at Bells", Tennessee, where he spent four 
years. Following that he traveled for vari- 
ous Memphis cotton factors, soliciting ship- 
ments and had probably a larger following 
than any other man in the Mid-South, for 
none who knew him could help liking him, 
nor could doubt his integrity. From 1892 
to 1895, he was cashier of the Brownsville 
(Tennessee) Bank, and for the following 
three years editor of the Brownsville 
States-Democrat. During the legislative 
session of 1886, he represented Crockett 
County in the Tennessee General Assembly. 
In 1903. he moved his residence from 
Brownsville to Memphis, since which time 
he has been one of the most prominent and 
useful men in the city along all good lines. 
He was president of the directory of the 
Y. M. C. A. from 1904 to 1910, during 
which period the magnificent structure on 
Madison Avenue was built. He has been a consistent member of the Methodist Church 
for nearly half a century and for twenty consecutive years was a lay delegate to the Gen- 
eral Conference. He organized the Tennessee Workshop for the Blind, and organized and 
was executive officer of the Cotton Factors' Association from 1910 to 1917. He was a 
member of the Shelby County Commission from 1912 to 1914. Since 1917, he has been 
secretary and financial agent for the Methodist Hospital. For years he has been a leader 
in all movements in the Mid-South for better roads, and on account of his ability along 
that line, the Chamber of Commerce induced him to become manager of its good roads 
department. He is president of one, vice-president of two, director in two and secretary of 
one interstate and transcontinental highway associations. Mr. King has been married twice 
— to Miss Mollie B. Williams in 1887, and to Miss Fannie King in 1904. One child survives 
the former wife. 




836 



I. P. Jtliles 




L 



OVICK PIERCE MILES, lawyer, 
Memphis, Tennessee, is a native of 
Virginia, having been born at 
Marion, May 17, 1871, the son of the Rev- 
erend George W. Miles, a Southern Metho- 
dist minister, a native of South Carolina, 
and Rebecca Austin Miles, a native of 
Tennessee. He was graduated from Emory 
& Henry College. Virginia, June. 1891, and 
later studied law at the University of Vir- 
ginia. He came to Memphis in 1894 and 
spent five years here with The Commer- 
cial Appeal, first as a reporter, in which 
capacity he at once took first rank, not 
only for the accurate and graceful arrange- 
ment of his facts, but also for the fine vein 
of humor which he injected into so mam 
stories, and later as correspondent at the 
national capital and as assistant managing 
editor. In 1899, Mr. Miles severed his 
connection with The Commercial Appeal 
and entered the practice of law in Fort 
Smith. Arkansas, joining an older brother, 
Oscar L. Miles, who was then and until his 
death one of the leading lawyers of that 
State. Mr. Miles during his stay in Arkan- 
sas, in addition to engaging in general 
practice, was assistant attorney of the Mis- 
souri Pacific Railway System from 1902 
until 1908, and from the latter date until 
1912 was general attorney for the same 
system for Western Arkansas and Okla- 
homa. His success was conspicuous in 
Arkansas, hut having lived and married in Memphis he favorablv considered a suggestion 
to return and in 1912 resigned his railroad connections, gave up his private practice in 
Arkansas and returned to Memphis, forming with Honorable Luke E. Wright, Major 
Roane Waring and Samuel P. Walker the firm of Wright, Miles, Waring & Walker, from 
that date one of the leading law firms of the South. Mr. Miles' most recent conspicuous 
service has been, representing the Memphis Street Railway Company, in establishing before 
the Supreme Court of the State the constitutionality of the State Utilities Act. and in 
securing relief for his client from the State L'tilities Commission. While his clientage has 
been largely corporate, Mr. Miles early appreciated and has consistentlv recognized and 
respected the rights of the public and of labor in all controversies. He is a member of the 
Methodist Church, the Tennessee, and Memphis Country Clubs, and Phi Delta Theta 
Fraternity. He married Miss Kate Crawford in 1906. Their children are Anne Crawford. 
Lovick P., Jr., and Kate Miles. 



837 



I. V. »Ufl* 



JAMES VICTOR RUSH, Memphis, 
Tennessee, head of the Rush Lumber 
Company, one of the leading hardwood 
Lumber manufacturers of the South, was 
born in Edinburg, Indiana, May 26, 1858, 
the son of Doctor William Porter and 
Eliza (Stout) Rush. He is a grandson of 
Elihu Stout, who in 1804 published the 
Vincennes Sun, the first newspaper in In- 
diana. Air. Rush was educated in the com- 
mon and high schools of Edinburg. He 
began his business career before his eigh- 
teenth year with the Columbus Woolen 
Mills. Then he spent a year and a half at 
Evansville as bookkeeper and traveling 
salesman for the Evansville Woolen Mills. 
Following this he went with the wholesale 
dry goods concern of Mackey-Nisbet Com- 
pany in 1893, acquiring an interest in the 
company and remaining its secretary and 
treasurer until 1907. He then resigned his 
connections with the dry goods company to 
accept the presidency of the Mercantile 
Trust & Savings Bank and also of the Mer- 
cantile National Bank of Evansville. While 
in Evansville he was an active factor in 
the development of the interurban electric 
lines, especially so in the organization of 
the Evansville, Mount Vernon and Rock- 
port lines. After their consolidation he was 
elected a director in the company and, over 
his protest, was re-elected to the same posi- 
tion after he had moved to Memphis. In 
1909, he became a member of the lumber firm of Moffett, Bowman & Rush, and severing 
his connections in Evansville, moved to Memphis and selected a location for a mill for the 
company. The following year the mill was built with an initial capacity of 35,000 feet per 
day, specializing in oak and gum. Upon the death in 1919 of Air. Owen Moffett, Air. Rush 
bought the Bowman interests and the firm was reorganized as the Rush Lumber Company, 
composed of himself, his son Paul Rush and Airs. Eliza G. Aloffett. Air. Rush's standing 
among his fellows is attested by his being president of the Memphis Lumberman's Club. 
He is a fourth degree Knight of Columbus and a consistent member of the Roman Catho- 
lic Church. He was twice president of the Evansville Chamber of Commerce, and vice- 
president of the Associated Charities there. In Memphis he helped organize the Associated 
Charities. He and Aliss Fannie Winans of Columbus, Indiana, were married Alay 26, 1883. 
Thev have one son, Paul Rush. 




838 



Mx. J. $. Hougla* 




D 



, OCTOR JOI I X PR] OR DOUGLAS, 
Arlington, Tennessee, oldest resi- 
dent of that city, planter and retired 
physician, was born in what now is that 
city, January 11, 1844, the son of George 
Livingston and Joanna Worinerly (Sander- 
ford) Douglas. Mis Eather had been a 
pioneer settler there and was a planter and 
slave owner of consequence in that com- 
munity. Young John grew up on his fath- 
er's plantation and attended the county 
schools until the Civil War. when he volun- 
teered and fought for four years with Gen- 
eral Forrest. The soidier returned at once 
to Arlington and studied medicine in the 
offices of his brother-in-law, Doctor C. M. 
Stewart, and Doctor D. G. Godwin. Then 
he went to the University of Tennessee in 
Nashville, where he received his degree of 
doctor of medicine in 1873. Doctor Doug- 
la^ immediately began the practice of his 
profession in Arlington, where he was emi- 
nently successful from the start. When the 
West Tennessee Hospital for the Insane 
was established at Bolivar, he was chosen 
assistant to the superintendent, and upon 
his death the following year. Doctor 
Douglas succeeded him. For fifteen years 
he held that position, resigning, on account 
of ill health, three years prior to the end 
of his last term. During his long and* suc- 
cessful career at Bolivar he used neither 
crib nor straight-jacket. On the contrary, 
he knew each patient by name, became the personal friend of each, reasoned that a dog knew 
his friend and that even a crazy man had more sense than a dog and by the charm and force 
of his personality almost always succeeded in quieting any turbulent patient. Long before 
he left the hospital, Doctor Douglas was recognized as one of the leading authorities in the 
United States in the treatment of the feebleminded. He was equally as efficient there 
as an administrator as he was professionally. Upon leaving the hospital. Doctor Doug- 
las returned to Arlington, where he built a handsome residence on his father's old home 
site, and resumed the practice of his profession and the management of his plantations, 
aggregating some two thousand acres. Doctor Douglas has been married twice, first to 
Miss Carrie Lou Pittman. their only son being John P. Junior. His second wife was Miss 
Georgie Battle of Brownsville. Tennessee. 



839 



£. 1. Curie? 




T 



iHOMAS JEFFERSON TURLEY, 
one of the leading real estate and 
mortgage loan men of the Mid-South, 
is a native of Memphis, where he had spent 
his entire life. He was born November 27, 
1876, at the old Turley homestead on the 
northeast corner of Linden avenue and 
Wellington street, where his father was 
born and died, the son of Thomas Battle 
and Irene (Rayner) Turley. His father; 
his grandfather, for whom he is named, and 
a great-uncle, Justice William Y. Turley, 
have left their impress stamped for all time 
on the development of the law in Tennessee, 
while the Battle and Boddie families, from 
which he is descended also, are two of the 
oldest, largest and best families in the 
South. On his mother's side he comes of 
one of the sturdiest Fayette County fami- 
lies", she being a woman of the rarest culture 
and refinement. Mr. Turley 's father, a 
Confederate soldier at sixteen years of age 
and in every engagement with the Army of 
the Tennessee from Belmont to Benton- 
ville ; a member of the United States Senate 
by appointment and then by election from 
1897 to 1901, was surpassed during his 
long career by no man in the South for his 
attainments as a lawyer and as a statesman; 
for his kindness of heart, soundness of 
judgment and honesty. Mr. Turley inher- 
ited the character and attainments of both 
of his parents. He was educated at the 
Memphis Military Academy, the Virginia Military Academy and at the University of Vir- 
ginia. In 1896 he entered the business world as an employe of the Memphis Trust Company, 
which later by consolidation with an old bank, became the Bank of Commerce & Trust 
Company. After ten years of training in that financial institution, Mr. Turley went into 
business for himself, dealing in real estate. He has added mortgage loans to that business, 
now being head of the Turley-Bullington Mortgage Company and vice-president of the Tur- 
ley, Naill & Galbreath Company, one of the largest real estate firms in the South. His judg- 
ment, frankness and honesty are given full faith and credit in any business transaction in 
Memphis and he is held in the same esteem by Eastern concerns wishing to make large 
loans in this section. Mr. Turley and Miss Shallye Johnston were married June 27, 1906. 
They live at the Memphis Country Club of which Mr. Turley has been president for a num- 
ber of terms. He is also a member of the Tennessee Club. 



840 



1U. B. Roberts 




w< 



LIAM D'JAI.MA ROBERTS, 
retired capitafist, Memphis, Tennes- 
see, imc of the pioneer cotton oil 
men of the country, was born November 
12, 1848 in Dyersburg, Tennessee, the son 
of John Edward and Mary ( Davis) Rob- 
erts. Mi, father moved to Tennessee from 
Virginia and his mother came from frank- 
lin, Tennessee. At twenty years of age he 
went into the grocery business for himself 
in Dyersburg, expanding later into general 
merchandising. He was one of the or- 
ganizers of the Citizens Bank in Dyersburg, 
one of the oldest and strongest financial in- 
stitutions in West Tennessee outside of 
Memphis. In 1884 he went into the cotton 
oil business, building a mill in Dyersburg. 
lie also built and operated the rirst oil bar- 
rel stave mill in Dyersburg. The poor 
health of Mrs. Roberts made a drier climate 
necessary and in 1891 the family moved 
from Dyersburg to Chattanooga, Tennessee, 
where he organized the Richmond Cotton 
( )il Company, building a mill in Chatta- 
nooga, which company later built and oper- 
ated mills in Sheffield. Alabama, Memphis. 
Tennessee and Kennett. Missouri. This 
expansion necessitated Mr. Roberts remov- 
ing to Memphis in 1899 where he would be 
better located to look after the business. 
Soon thereafter Chattanooga friends caused 
him to become interested in the Memphis 
Morning News, then being organized, and 
induced him to accept the presidency of the company which was later merged with the 
Evening Scimitar. About 1908 he retired from the Richmond Cotton Oil Company and 
devoted himself to the business of the Roberts Cotton Oil Companv which had been organ- 
ized some years before by himself and son, \V. S. Roberts. He built its first mill at 
Cairo. Illinois, which was followed by mills at Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Maiden. Missouri. 
In 1917 he resigned as president of the Roberts Cotton Oil Company in favor of his son. 
W. S. Roberts, who is now president and geneial manager of the company. He is a member 
of the firm of Roberts. Carter & Company cotton buyers and exporters, a director of the 
National City Bank, interested in real estate and various other enterprises, a member of the 
Second Presbyterian Church and the Chamber of Commerce. In October, 1872. he married 
Miss Grace A. Swearengen of Mississippi who died January 7, 1915, leaving three sons. Wil- 
liam S., John Edward and James Roberts, all of whom are associated with their father in 
the oil mill and cotton business as well as other enterprises. 



841 



aromas ft. ftuttoiler 



THOMAS H. TITW'ILER, president 
of the Memphis Street Railway 
Company, general manager and, co- 
receiver for the property, is a native of 
Virginia, where he was born September 22, 
1866, at Palmyra, the son of Thos. H. and 
Caroline Sloan Tutwiler. After having re- 
ceived a common school education, he chose 
for his life work engineering, which he 
studied under private tutorship and in which 
he has achieved such signal success. His 
first conspicuous work was in 1889 when, he 
had charge of the construction of the draw- 
bridge over Sunflower River in Mississippi 
for the Georgia Pacific Railroad. For the 
two years following that he was with the 
Louisville, New Orleans & Texas (now the 
Yazoo & Mississippi Delta) Railroad in the 
construction of the line from Clarksdale 
down the Tallahatchie River, passing 
irough the town of Tutwiler, named for 
im. In that day the virile men of the 
Tallahatchie River country measured a man 
solely by what was in him, paying no atten- 
tion to his title or possessions. By that 
standard, Mr. Tutwiler stood high among 
them. For nine years following 1892, he was 
engineer for the New Orleans Street Rail- 
way system, then engineer for the Birming- 
ham Street Railway system and did the 
neat work of converting the traction system 
of the Two Kansas Citys from cable to 
electric power. In 1903 and 1904, he had 
charge of the rehabilitation of the Nashville Street Railway system and the year following, 
came to Memphis when the Newman interests bought the local system from C. K. G. Bil- 
lings. He has been general manager of the system from that time to this, as vice president 
for the first year and since 1906 as president. One of the most accomplished construction 
engineers in the United States, he rebuilt almost the entire Memphis system, and installed 
new equipment, greatly to the comfort of the patrons. He has proven himself equally as 
efficient an operative official as he is in the engineering line. During the recent lean years 
for owners of street railways, he has been able to maintain the property in excellent physi- 
cal condition. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Engineering 
Association South, Louisiana Engineering Society, Tennessee Club and Memphis Country 
Club. He and Miss Mary E. Goodloe were married in December, 1894. 




842 



r. J. 8L MUtn 




J 



OHM THOMAS ALLEN, fShysician 
and surgeon, Brownsville, Tennessee, 

is the son of a pioneer doctor in West 
Tennessee, whom he lias followed in the 
same profession and in the same county. 
Hi was born December 28, 1856, in Hay- 

W I County, Tennessee, the son 01 Dr. 

John R., his mother being Julia Ann 
(Snipes) Allen. I lis paternal grandfather 
was Amsnn Allen of Virginia and his mother 
was from the old Burnett family of North 
Carolina, the ancestry being English. The 
family moved into Brownsville in 1868 and 
Dr. Allen received his early education there, 
later attending the Southwestern Baptist 
University at Jackson, Tennessee, where he 
was graduated in 1875. On the following 
year he began the study of medicine under 
the direction of his father in Brownsville, 
later going to Bellevue Hospital Medical 
College, in New York City, where he re- 
ceived his degree of doctor of medicine 
there March 1, 1880. While he was a stu- 
dent in the Bellevue college, the frightful 
yellow fever scourge of 1878 swept West 
Tennessee, being especially bad from Mem- 
phis to Brownsville. The doctor's home 
town was cut off almost entirely from the 
rest of the world and was saved only by 
relief trains out from Memphis, itself al- 
most prostrate. Dr. Allen, then a first 
course student, remained through this with 
his people at a time which tried men's souls. 
This was the subject of his graduation thesis. After having practiced in Brownsville for 
some years. Dr. Allen went abroad and spent 1887 and 1888 finishing his course in medi- 
cine in Paris. London and Berlin, paying particular attention to special surgery. He has con- 
tinued to pursue this course since then without the loss of a day. For more than twenty years 
he has been proprietor of and surgeon in the Home Sanatorium at Brownsville. He is also 
surgeon for the Louisville & Nashville railroad, and during the war served as chairman 
of the draft advisory board. He is a member of the Tennessee State Medical Association, 
the Southern Medical Association, the American Medical Association and the various local 
medical societies, in most of which he has been active for more than thirty years. Dr. Allen 
and Miss Minneola Mann were married March 20. 1890. Their children are John K. Allen, 
Mrs. M. O. Davidson and the late Mrs. John R. Ragland. 



843 



C. &. Cieriiart 




c 



H-ARLES S T E I' H E X EBER- 
HART, for nearly half a century in 
the coal business in Memphis, Ten- 
nessee, was born in Erbach-by-Ulm, Wurt- 
tefnburg, Germany, October 31, 1848, the 
son of Max and Marie Anna (Springer) 
Eberhart. After having received his public 
school education at home, he worked for 
three and a half years for a firm doing a 
retail grocery, coal and general insurance 
business. For the privilege of being al- 
lowed to work for this firm and learn the 
business, his father paid $400.00. Later 
he worked for a year and a half as book- 
keeper for a wholesale house in Freiberg. 
In the winter of 1868, when he was twenty 
years of age, he emigrated to the United 
States and spent two years in St. Louis, 
Missouri, and Chicago, Illinois, and then 
went to Helena, Arkansas, where he en- 
gaged in the river coal business. On May 
1, 1873, he came to Memphis and began 
working for the Saint Bernard Coal Com- 
pany, remaining with that company until it 
became C. B. Bryan & Company, and con- 
tinuing with that concern until, in 1889, 
C. B. Bryan & Company consolidated with 
Brown & Jones, an old coal concern in 
Memphis, and formed the Pittsburgh Coal 
Company. He remained with that com- 
pany until 1897, when Mr. Bryan and he 
bought the retail business of the Pittsburgh 
Coal Company and formed the firm of 
Bryan & Eberhart. At Mr. Bryan's death, Mr. Eberhart formed the Pittsburgh Coal & 
Coke Company in 1906, and in 1912 he severed his connection with that firm and formed 
the Eberhart Coal Company. On August 1, 1914, Mr. Eberhart and June H. Rudisill 
bought the Galloway Coal Company's retail business and formed the Galloway-Eberhart 
Coal Company, of which Mr. Eberhart is president. Mr. Eberhart has returned to Europe 
twice, in 1898 and in 1901, and has traveled extensively in the United States and in Canada. 
He is a thirty-second degree Mason, a Knight Templar, a Shriner, being one of the oldest, 
a member of the Odd Fellows, and also a Knight of Pythias. He also belonged to the 
German Casino and the old German Brudderbund. He has never sought or held any 
political office. He and Miss Katie Bruder were married April 8, 1877. They have three 
living children : Charles S. Junior, Amelia Cecilia, and Katie Bruder. Two others, William 
and Tinie, have died. 



844 



J. W. Jfalls 




J 



OHN WILL FALLS, prominent in 
business and social circles in Memphis, 
Tennessee, is a native of Memphis, 
where he was born September 17, 1877, 
the son of Mrs. Clara Dunn Falls and the 
late James Napoleon balls, one of the 
pioneer business men of Memphis and 
descended from a family which had been 
leaders in North Carolina during Colonial 
and Revolutionary days. Mr. Falls' great- 
grandfather moved from Iredell County. 
North Carolina to Somerville, Tennessee, 
in the earliest days of the settlement of 
West Tennessee, and his grandfather, Gil- 
|i Dreath Falls, moved from there to Memphis 
in 1845. where he established the pioneer 
cotton buying and exporting firm of G. 
Falls & Company. Mr. Falls was educated 
in the private and public schools of Mem- 
phis and then spent two years in Upper 
Canada College, Toronto, Canada. He en- 
tered Phillips Exeter, Exeter, Massachu- 
setts, in 1895, graduating from there in 
1897. Thence he went to Yale, where he 
took a special course in electrical engineer- 
ing, receiving the degree of bachelor of 
sciences in 1900. He returned home and 
in 1901 entered the employ of the Valley 
Oil Mills of which his father, who was a 
pioneer in the cotton oil business, was the 
head. In 1903 he was elected secretary 
and treasurer of the company, in which 
capacity he remained until the mills were 
burned and the business of the company wound up. Then Mr. Falls took charge of the 
large personal business of his father and entered the real estate business, in the manage- 
ment of both of which he was most successful. In 1909, Mr. Falls organized the Chickasaw 
Building Company and under that name erected the Falls Building on Front Street, a 
model of concrete construction and the largest cotton office building in the United States. 
Mr. Falls has never sought or held public office, but has ever stood, as his family always 
has done, for all that was progressive and good in public affairs. Air. Falls is a member 
of the Tennessee Club and the University Club, and is a charter member of the Memphis 
Country Club. His sound business judgment is highly prized by his associates in any ven- 
ture. His favorite pastime is the breeding of fancy blooded poultry, in which line he is 
one of the leaders in this section. Mr. Falls and Miss Camille Pryor were married March 
17, 1919. They have one daughter. Anita. 



845 



iatoflton B. Jfallsi 




L 



AWSON DUNK FALLS, .Memphis. 
Tennessee, leader in the industrial 
development of the Mid-South, is a 
native of Memphis. He was born here. 
June 4. 1874, the son of Mrs. Clara Dunn 
Falls and the late James Napoleon Falls. 
His paternal ancestors migrated from Eng- 
land to what now is Iredell County, North 
Carolina, in 1635, and were prominent 
there in colonial and revolutionary days. 
His great-grandfather was one of the 
earliest settlers of Fayette County, Ten- 
nessee. His grandfather moved to Mem- 
phis in 1845 and was a pioneer business 
man here, and his father for more than 
half a century was a leader throughout the 
Mid-South in its material, moral and social 
development. After having been trained 
in private schools in Memphis. Mr. Falls 
went to Andover Preparatory School for 
Yale University, where he took the full 
course. Then went to Poughkeepsie, New- 
York, and took the course in Eastman's 
Business College. Mr. J. N. Falls had been 
a pioneer in the manufacture of cotton seed 
oil, having established a mill for that pur- 
pose a year before the birth of Mr. L. D. 
Falls. Hence it was but natural that the 
son should join the father in the Valley Oil 
Company. Mr. L. D. Falls became the 
president and manager of that concern and 
operated it with success for a number of 
years, until the plant was destroved by fire. 
During the time that he was the head of the Valley Oil Company, he organized the Roval 
Refining Company, of which he was president and which did an extensive business in the 
manufacture of castor oil. In 1906, Mr. Falls organized the American Bag Company. 
It is one of the largest manufacturers of bags in the country. He also organized the Amer- 
ican Finishing Company, which does a nation-wide business in the "filling" of cotton fab- 
rics to make it available for flour bags and other purposes requiring a tighter article than 
the original weave. He has been the president and active head of both concerns since 
their inception. Mr. Falls is a member of the Tennessee and Memphis Country clubs, 
the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants Exchange, of which he has served as a 
director and as vice-president. He and Miss May Coffin were married in November, 1900. 
Their children are: Virginia Lawson, Lawrence Coffin, Lawson Dunn, Junior, and May 
Frances Falls. 



846 



3 . $. Hebparb 




J 



l >SIU'.\ HEARD LEDYARD, manu- 
facturer, Tupelo, Mississippi, was born 
September 3, 1875, in Shubuta, Missis- 
sippi, the son of Thomas Anderson and 
Carrie (Heard) Ledyard. He attended the 
public schools of (lark County, Mississippi, 
and then went to tin- Agricultural & Me- 
chanical College at Stark villi-. Mississippi, 
where he was graduated in 1802. He 
selected textile manufacturing for his life 
work and it is in that line that he has 
achieved such signal success. After having 
been graduated from the "A. & M.," a- the 
Mississippians are fond of calling that use- 
ful institution, he went to the then center 
ol knowledge in his chosen line. Lowell. 
Massachusetts, where he took the full 
course and was graduated from the Lowell 
Textile School. At the age of eighteen 
years he moved to Meridian, Mississippi, 
where he went into the Meridian Cotton 
Mills as a bookkeeper. His close attention 
to every detail of his work, sterling hon- 
esty and integrity told from the beginning 
and were responsible for the rapid promo- 
tions that he earned and received, for it was 
less than five years from the time that he 
entered the Meridian mills that he was in- 
trusted with the responsible position of 
treasurer of the company. But rapid as 
was his rise in Meridian. Mr. Ledyard, 
when he was offered the presidencv and 
general managership of the Tupelo Cotton 
Mills, felt that Tupelo offered a wider field for his ability than Meridian did. and hence, 
in 1898, he accepted the offer. Both he and the enterprise have benefited greatly from 
the change and now the Tupelo Cotton Mills is ranked as one of the most successful and 
strongest in the Mid-South. Mr. Ledyard dees not believe that the sole work of the 
head of a big concern is to make money. His company not only gives free medical treat- 
ment and examinations to all employes and their families, but also maintains a corps of 
trained social service workers who are engaged all of the time in making conditions better 
for the employes. They have a band which probably is the best in Northeast Mississippi. 
Mr. Ledyard is an active member of the Methodist Church, in which he is a steward and 
superintendent of the Sunday School. He and Miss Annie Robins were married June 28, 
1001. They have five children. Dabney Allen. Robins. Carol. Annie Bell and Francis. 



847 



Israel $• $**** 



ISRAEL HYMAN PERES ( B. A., '89, 
L. L. B. '91, M. A., '99, Yale), lawyer, 
Memphis, Tennessee, son of the Rev- 
erend Jacob J. and Eva (Chuts) Peres, 
born in Memphis. August 27, 1867, attended 
Memphis Public Schools and Prof. Jones' 
private School, and graduated at Yale with 
the class of '89, rated high in Yale tradition 
for the success of its members in after life. 
About twelve of them have been or are 
judges of superior courts. He graduated 
in the Yale Law school in 1891 and re- 
ceived his Master of Arts degree in 1899 in 
the Science of Society Courses under Pro- 
fessor William G. Sumner. He was presi- 
dent of the Yale Chess Club and won its 
first prize. He won the Betts prize in the 
Law school for the highest mark in junior 
examination, and received Kent Club cer- 
tificate in oratory and debating. He was 
"Vice Chancellor" of Book and ( iavel, a 
local Yale Law Fraternity which after- 
wards became Calhoun Chapter of Phi 
Alpha Delta. He began practice in Mem- 
phis in October, 1891, with the firm of 
Taylor & Carroll, and later became a mem- 
ber of Carroll & Peres. He then formed 
a partnership with John Lehman ( now as- 
sistant corporation counsel of New York 
City) and later practiced with Robt. E. 
King (now of Ewing, King & King) under 
the name of Peres & King until January, 
1918, when Governor Rye appointed him 
Chancellor of the Tenth Chancery Division of Tennessee, Part Two, to which office he 
was elected in August, 1918, to the eighth year term. He has a select law library to which 
he constantly adds and he is a strong advocate of the text book method of teaching. 
Among his contributions to the press and magazines are "Civilization," "Shakespeare," 
"Dignitv of Litigation." "Law of the Road," "Economic Status of Women," "School 
Administration Problems of the South." "What Constitutes an Efficient Superintendent of 
Public Schools," "Russian Jewish Immigration," "Penalty of a Race," "Disraeli." He 
delivered the Corner-Stone addresses of Scottish Rite Cathedral, Masonic Temple and 
Park Avenue Lodge. He is 33 degree Honorary Scottish Rite Mason ; Past Master Leila 
Scott, 289 F. A. M. ; Shriner ; Moose ; Ex-president Memphis School Board ; Ex-president 
Lions' Club and School Administration Department of N. E. A. of which he is a member 
and belongs to nearlv all the local Jewish organizations. He married Miss Rebecca Behm 
in March, 1901. She died in December of that year without issue. 




848 



^arbtotg $eres 




H 



ARDWIG PERES, merchandise 
broker; and public spirited citizen 
of Memphis, Tennessee, is head of 
the firm which his father founded the year 
that lie was born, and lias been connected 
with it during his entire career. The son 
of Jacob J. and Eva i Units i Peres, he was 
horn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Janu- 
ary 6, 1859. Later that same year his dis- 
tinguished father established in Memphis 
the merchandise brokerage firm which still 
stands mi high a- Jacob J. Peres & Com- 
pany. Mr. Peres attended the public 
schools nl Memphis until he was twelve 
years of age, when he went into his father's 
firm, then Ledyard, Perry & Peres, but as- 
sociation with his father was in itself a 
liberal education. In 1876, at seventeen 
years of age. he was taken into the firm 
and made manager of the branch which 
was opened in New Orleans. His father 
died of yellow fever in L879, and .Mr. Peres 
returned to Memphis and gradually took 
over the management and acquired the 
ownership of the business. The firm was 
pioneer at the time of its organization, and 
Mr. Peres has expanded the business and 
maintained in all of its business dealings 
the high standing of the family nam'-. Mr. 
Peres is a member of the Rex Club, the 
Young Men's Hebrew Association, the 
Masons, the Elks, 'he IVnai R'rith. the 
Moose, the Shrine, the Thirty-second Scot- 
tish Rite degree, the City Club and of the Chamber of Commerce, of which he was a 
director in 1919. For many years he has taken an active part in politics, seeking no office 
for himself, but because he had high ideals of the kind of government that the city of 
Memphis ought to have and was willing to spend his time and money to put them into 
effect. His old office on L'nion Avenue was long the scene of weeklv meetings of a band 
of men who had the same ideals as he and who gathered to promote them. Thev ever 
stood against gang rule, against the then current ballot-box stuffing and for an efficient and 
honest administration. He was their leader. Sometimes they won; sometimes they lost, 
but all the time the idea was growing. In 1917, he was elected a member of the City 
Roard of Education and its president, as his father and his brother had previously been. He 
was reelected president in 1918 and 1919, where his administration has been most efficient. 



849 



C C. Cijompson 




c 



lHARLES CLARK THOMPSON, 
vice-president and general manager 
of the Thompson Brothers & Price 
Cigar Company, Memphis, Tennessee, one 
of the largest dealers in cigars and tobacco 
in the South, is a native of Pike County, 
Missouri, having been born in Bowling 
Green, January 8, 1882, the son of William 
Clay and Maggie (Savage) Thompson. His 
father was a descendant of Henry Clay of 
Kentucky, but with the death of the Whig 
party became a rock-ribbed Democrat and 
voted for his friend, Champ Clark, at every 
election for forty years. Mr. Thompson 
was educated in the schools of his native 
city and later took the course at the Gem 
City Business College of Quincy, Illinois. 
For a number of years he was one of the 
most successful men traveling out of Mem- 
phis and Little Rock. Arkansas, in the cigar 
and tobacco lines. In 1912 he entered the 
retail cigar business in Little Rock and two 
years later he helped to organize and in- 
corporate the firm there of the Thompson 
Brothers Cigar Company with a capital 
stock of $25,000. The brothers put such an 
amount of steam and business integrity into 
the business that within a few months the 
business was expanded into the Thompson 
Brothers & Price Company with a capital 
stock of $250,000. The corporation was 
composed of himself, E. Starr Thompson, 
Russell H. Thompson and C. G. Price. 
With the increased capital the company progressed even more rapidly. In 1920 the main 
office of the company was moved to Memphis, where it erected on Huling Avenue an ideal 
building, two stories high with fifty feet frontage and having a humidor capacity for 
three million cigars, said by experts to be the best cigar building in the South. The com- 
pany has branch offices in New Orleans. Little Rock, Shreveport. Tulsa and Muskogee, 
travels fourteen men constantly on the road and does one of the biggest businesses in its 
line in the South. Mr. Thompson is named for the famous Missouri statesman and one 
of his favorite brands of cigars bears the likeness and name of Champ Clark. Another is 
The Airedale, named for that sturdy breed of dogs of which he is a fancier. He has a farm 
in Drew County, Arkansas, where he specializes in Hereford cattle. He is an Elk. Mr. 
Thompson and Miss Edith Harper were married, in Monticello, Arkansas, December 22, 
1902. They have one son: C. C. Junior. 



850 



Br. C. OT. Raptor 




EGBERT WOODSON TAYLOR, 
Memphis, Tennessee, one of the 
leading dentists of the .Mid-South 
and professor of prosthetic dentistry in the 
Dental College of the University of Ten- 
nessee, is a native of East Tennessee. He 
was born near Morristown, October 26, 
1876, the youngest of six children of 
Nathan Gray and Man Elizabeth ( Evans) 
Taylor. As he grew up the parents were 
becoming old and he remained on the farm 
with them, taking care of them and doing 
a large part of the work on the farm. 
While thus engaged lie got his preliminary 
education from the county schools anil later 
from the Morristown High School. In 
order to he able to attend the latter, he was 
compelled to ride three and a half miles 
horseback twice each day. He remained 
on the farm until he was twenty-three years 
of age and then realizing that he was en- 
titled to a better chance in life than that 
then afforded by the farm there, he left 
the country and went to work in the 
machine shop of the Southern Railway. 
After only a few months he became a fire- 
man on a locomotive for the railroad com- 
pany. He remained in that work for two 
and a half years and then was promoted 
to engineer. He was for nearly five years 
one of the best engineers on his division 
and at the end of that time he had saved 
some money and was able to borrow enough 
to take the further education necessary to the practice of the profession which he had 
selected for his future life work. Hence he left the throttle in September, 1906, and went 
to the University College of Medicine at Richmond. Virginia. He put in two vears of 
close study there and at the end of that time went to Vanderbill University at Nashville, 
where he was graduated in 1909. He came to Memphis about the time the University of 
Memphis Dental College was forming, became a member of its faculty and was instru- 
mental in its consolidation with the Dental College of the University of Tennessee in which 
he has held the chair of prosthetic dentistry ever since. Doctor Taylor was married first 
October 30, 1900, to Mi^> Cora Hunt, who died in 1903, leaving one son, Howard. His 
second marriage was with Miss Ethel Sullivan. September 22. 1910. They have two chil- 
dren, both girls, Ethel Woodson Taylor and Celeste Elizabeth Taylor. 



851 



<§uv &>. burner 




G 



L'Y SACKVILLE TURNER, me- 
chanical and electrical engineer, 
Memphis, Tennessee, was born in 
Water Valley, Mississippi, April 2, 1876, 
the son of Louis Edgar and Nannie Emily 
i Brewer) Turner. He attended the public 
schools of Yalobusha County, but at the 
age of fifteen years went to work for the 
Illinois Central Railroad Company as a 
telegraph operator, and the following year 
entered the shops of that company in 
Water Valley as machinist's apprentice, 
putting in four full years in that work. 
Mr. Turner realized that the school of ex- 
perience alone was a poor, slow and expen- 
sive form of education. He yearned for 
what others beside himself had learned, 
and, in connection with his actual work, 
began taking correspondence courses in 
engineering, both mechanical and electrical. 
Having finished his apprenticeship, he 
worked as a journeyman machinist for the 
old Memphis & Charleston Railroad in 
Memphis until April 23, 1898, when he en- 
listed in the Signal Corps of the United 
States army, serving until February, 1899, 
when he received his honorable discharge. 
Returning to Memphis he entered the em- 
ploy of the old Memphis Light & Power 
Company, predecessor of the present Mem- 
phis Gas & Electric Company. He remained 
with that concern through its various 
changes for twenty years, his promotions 
being steady through the various stations in the power house on Beale Avenue to the gen- 
eral office, where he held for a long time the position of head of the manufacturing 
department. He remained there until May, 1919, when he resigned and formed the firm 
of Turner & Turner, Incorporated, of which he is the president. The firm was formed 
as engineers and experts on fuel and for the wholesale and retail distribution of coal and 
coke, but later the members bought a coal mine at Island, Kentucky, and formed also the 
Turner Coal Mining Company, of which he is also president. In October, 1919, he and 
associates formed the Consumers Oil & Chemical Company, of which Mr. Turner is secre- 
tary, treasurer and manager. He is a member of the Colonial Country Club ; of the Cham- 
ber of Commerce ; of the Masons ; of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and 
of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. He and Miss Ruth Perry were married 
August 27, 1902. They have one child. Dorothy. 



852 



13 tan Ibams 




D 



,EAN ADAMS, one of the most suc- 
cessful real estate men in Memphis, 
is a native of Kentucky, bavins; been 
born in Dayton, October 11, 1879, the son 
of Alonzo and Katherine (Williamson) 
Adams. He received his education at the 
high schools and at the age of nineteen 
years went to Louisville and engaged in the 
real estate business, in which he has 
achieved such marked success and which 
has been his life work. At the end of three 
years in the quiet Kentucky metropolis, he 
moved to the more progressive and active 
city of Memphis, having realized that its 
location and the character of the men here 
and of those who were coming in would 
make a great city. During his first few 
years here he did a splendid business, 
mainly in citv and suburban real estate. In 
the meanwhile he has traveled widely 
throughout the Middle West and began to 
compare the character and yield of the 
lands of that section with those of the St. 
Francis Basin of Arkansas and the Missis- 
sippi Delta. He saw that acre for acre the 
southern lands were superior and that the 
income from their crops was much in excess 
of that from the northern lands, and yet 
that the sale price of the northern lands 
was from two to five times that of the 
Deltas of the Mid-South. Many other 
people saw the same things, but Mr. Adams 
had vision enough to realize that this con- 
dition would not continue, and that the lands of the Mid-South were due a large and rapid 
increase in price with the consequent frequent changing of hands. Hence, in 1912, he 
began to specialize in farm and timber lands, giving particular attention to the St. Francis 
Basin. He had faith in the forests and faith in the land once the forest gave place to the 
plow, and, further, he had the faculty to impart that faith to prospective customers. The 
inevitable result was the large business that he has done for the past several years and 
still is doing, for his faith is combined with a wealth of knowledge which is of real benefit 
to the land-seeker. His activity along that line is responsible for a large part of the rapid 
development in the past three years in the St. Francis Basin. Mr. Adams is a member 
of the Real Estate Exchange and of the Chamber of Commerce. He and Miss Catherine 
Johnson were married in Louisville, April 18, 1900. They have one child, named for her 
mother. 



853 



ft. J9. Ponb 




R 



OBEKT NELSON BOND, leading 
business man, Brownsville, Tennes- 
see, is a native of that city, having 
been born there July 8, 1873. the son of 
James and Helen (Nelson) Bond. He re- 
ceived his early education in the grade and 
high schools at Brownsville and then 
finished at Bingham's School in North Caro- 
line. His father having died when he was 
only seven years of age. Mr. Bond, at the 
age of seventeen years, began his business 
career as clerk in a drug store in Browns- 
ville at the salary of $10.00 per month, and 
before he was twenty vears of age he and 
Miss Annie Elizabeth Everett were married 
on June 8, 1893. They have three delight- 
ful children. Miss Annie Elizabeth Bond, 
Robert Nelson Bond, Junior, and George 
Everett Bond, with whom the family life 
in the beautiful home on West Main 
Street, graced by Mrs. Bond and Mr. 
Bond's mother, is most delightful. Mr. 
Bond became a member of the Baptist 
Church at the age of twelve years and has 
been a consistent member ever since. When 
he was only twenty years of age, he pur- 
chased the drug business in Brownsville of 
Williams & Riddick, and conducted it with 
marked success for nine years, until 1902, 
when he organized the Brownsville Cotton 
Oil Company, with a capital stock of $50,- 
000.00. In the beginning of this business, 
he was the secretary and treasurer of the 
Company and from the first season it was a success. Four years later, Mr. Bond organized 
the Haywood County Compress Company and was elected its secretary and treasurer. 
These concerns have prospered so greatly, and he with them, that in 1908, he bought the 
Brownsville Light & Ice Company, built a new plant and consolidated that with the oil 
company under the name of the Brownsville Cotton Oil & Ice Company, with a capital 
stock of $100,000.00. He assumed the presidency of the consolidated concern and made 
it one of the most successful in Western Tennessee. In fact, the success was so great 
that he and his associates branched out into Texas, where they organized the Vernon Cot- 
ton Oil Company and into Louisiana, where they organized the Monroe Cotton Oil Com- 
pany. When the United States entered into the World War Mr. Bond was chosen 
Chairman for Haywood County for the Red Cross. The score was 200 per cent. He is 
also President of the Brownsville Commercial Club. 



854 



%. 3B. Carroll 




t; 



IHOMAS BERNARD CARROLL, 
Jackson, Tennessee, cashier of the 
largest bank in West Tennessee out- 
side of Memphis, was born in Chester 
County, Tennessee, September 25. 1872. the 
son of John W. and .Mary ( ( ialbraith ) Car- 
roll. He attended the .Male and Female 
College of Henderson, Tennessee, from 
which he received the degree of master of 
■arts. With the view of perfecting himself 
for the life of a successful business man. 
Mr. Carroll went to Eastman's Business 
College at Poughkeepsie, New York. As 
a young man, Mr. Carroll had always taken 
an active interest in politics, and very early 
he became a factor to be dealt with in his 
section of the State. In 1 ( >02 he was 
elected secretary of the State Democratic 
Executive Committee and when the Hon- 
orable James B. Frazier became governor 
of the State, he asked Mr. Carroll to accept 
the position as his private secretary. He 
accepted. His thorough business training, 
coupled with his aptitude for politics, made 
him a most valuable man to the governor, 
not only in assisting him to make an excel- 
lent governor, but also in the way of fur- 
thering the governor's political aspirations. 
When Governor Frazier passed from the 
gubernatorial chair to the United States 
Senate, Mr. Carroll went with him in the 
same capacity and remained there with the 
same degree of efficiency that he had shown 
in the statehouse at Nashville. By this time, however, Mr. Carroll realized that he was 
fitted for a more important place in the affairs of the world than occupying a minor political 
position and he resigned, after two years in Washington, his connection with the United 
States to accept a position with the Peoples Savings Bank at Jackson as assistant cashier. 
Mr. Carroll was elected clerk of the Supreme Court in 1911 and served for eight years with 
great assistance to the court and the lawyers who had business there. Since that time Mr. 
Carroll has been with the Peoples Savings Bank as vice-president and cashier, and that insti- 
tution has grown rapidly until now it leads any in West Tennessee except some of the 
larger ones in Memphis. He is a Mason and an Elk. He and Miss Suzette Murchison 
were married in February, 1894. They have four sons: Raymond T. ; John M. ; Thomas 
Burns, and Kirk M. Carroll. 



855 



f^axvv Cofjn 

HARRY COHN, for more than half a 
century one of the leading mer- 
chants of Memphis, Tennessee, and 
head of one of the most successful banks 
in the Mid-South, was born in New York 
City in 1848. When but nineteen years of 
age he came to Memphis and went into 
business on old Charleston Avenue, in the 
line out of which the Dixie Clothing Com- 
pany developed, which he owns, which has 
been at the corner of Main Street and Jef- 
ferson Avenue so long that it is a landmark 
and which has clothed three generations of 
many of the leading families of Memphis. 
Mr. Cohn was the first man to install in 
Memphis a one-price-cash system of doing 
business. That was at the time that prac- 
tically all of the business of this section of 
the country was done on credit. In fact 
the payment of bills monthly was just com- 
ing in vogue in the city. Throughout the 
country most bills were made out as of date 
October 15, when the money from the cot- 
ton was coming in. His competitors and 
the merchants generally forecasted that the 
system would bankrupt the firm, but Mr. 
Cohn stuck to it, was able to sell the same 
grade of clothing cheaper than were the 
credit houses, for he had neither expense 
of bookkeeping and collecting nor bad 
debts. Customers attracted by this and 
courteous treatment, flocked to his estab- 
lishment in such numbers that for years it 
has been one of the leaders in its line throughout the Mid-South. His high standing in the 
mercantile world was responsible for his election some years ago to the presidency of the 
American Savings Bank & Trust Company. Under his able direction the deposits of this 
institution have steadily increased to more than the two million dollar mark and the bank 
has become one of the leading financial institutions in the city of Memphis. Its stock has 
become one of the most valuable of that of any bank in the city. Mr. Cohn has three 
hobbies; his work (although seventy-two vears of age, he is at his store at 6 o'clock every 
morning) ; his children, of whom he is justly proud, and charity. He and Miss Sarah 
Boshwitz were married in 1873. Their children are: Mrs. I. S. Crohn, Mrs. J. Spiro, 
Mrs. W. G. Sternberger, Abe Cohn, Nathan Cohn and Bernard L. Cohn. They also have 
ten grandchildren, one of them, the son of Bernard L. Cohn, being named Harry Cohn II, 
for his grandfather. 




856 



J. 3. Sail 




J 



AMES FRANKLIN HALL, banker, 
merchant and manufacturer, New Al- 
bany, Mississippi, was born in Lafayette 
County, Mississippi, September 22, 1881, 
the son of Caleb William and Esther 
Catherine (Houston) Hall. He attended 
the public schools at New Albany, and then 
took the course at the Agricultural & 
Mechanical College at Starkville. On the 
completion of the course at college, Mr. 
Hall took a position first with the Frisco 
System of railroads and then with the 1). II. 
Hall Lumber Company at New Albany as 
bookkeeper. In 1005 the directors of the 
Bank of New Albany elected him book- 
keeper of that institution. The following 
year he was promoted to assistant cashier, 
and after one year in that capacity he was 
made cashier. That was in 1907 and he 
held that position until January 1, 1915, 
when he was raised to the presidency, a 
position which he still holds and the suc- 
cess of the institution since he has been 
the head of it attests the wisdom of his 
selection. Mr. Hall was especially useful 
during the World War. He was chair- 
man of the committee in charge of the 
floatation. of government war loans for Dis- 
trict Number 9, comprising five counties. 
and largely through his own activity com- 
bined with his capacity as an organizer, 
each of the five counties went far over the 
to]). Aside from his banking business. Mr. 
Hall is one-third owner of the Ripley Stave Company, which is one of the big concerns in 
its line in the Mid-South. It has mills at Greenwood Springs, Port Gibson and Natchez. 
Mississippi, at Carbon Hill. Alabama, and at other points of vantage, with an output of 
from four to five million staves per year. He is also a stockholder in the Marine Bank & 
Trust Company of New Orleans, Louisiana, and in the New Albany Wholesale Grocery 
Company. He and several associates are owners of large and valuable tracts of timber 
land near New Albany and others near Macon, Mississippi. Mr. Hall also is half-owner 
in the Hall Insurance Agency at New Albany which does a large general insurance busi- 
ness. Mr. Hall has never sought political office for profit, but has thrice been elected coun- 
cilman in New Albany. He is a member of the Methodist Church. Mr. Hall was married 
December 23, 1919, to Miss Dorothy Wayne Sykes, daughter of Eugene Lanier Sykes of 
Aberdeen, Mississippi. 



857 



Jf . &. ©arrisf 



FLETCHER REID HARRIS, head of 
the Harris Iron & Supply Company 
of Memphis, Tennessee, is a native of 
Memphis, where he was born February 3, 
1866, the son of John Sherrod and Xalissa 
(Reid) Harris. He received his education 
in the private schools of Professor Lyon G. 
Tyler and Professor Wharton S. Jones in 
Memphis. He began his business career 
in Memphis in 1884 as a broker in mer- 
chandise. In 1890 Mr. Harris moved to 
Saint Louis, Missouri, and began business 
there as an investment broker, in course of 
which he has been identified with industrial 
enterprises and land developments im- 
portant in the life and growth of the Alid- 
South's Mississippi Valley. Although liv- 
ing in St. Louis, he had such faith in Mem- 
phis that he retained his real estate and 
other interests in Memphis, and in 1892 he 
and his brother, Earl A. Harris, organized 
here the Harris Iron & Supply Company, 
with its main office and warehouses at 222 
to 236 South Front Street, with a branch 
office in Saint Louis. Air. Fletcher R. 
Harris is president of the company, actively 
directing its affairs. The Harris Iron & 
Supply Company is an institution of the 
Mid-South, with its financial resources, oc- 
cupying its own office building and ware- 
houses, dealing at wholesale in iron and 
steel for all purposes, material for the man- 
ufacture of wagons, carriages, agricultural 
implements, shop supplies, roofings and innumerable items incidental to that line of metals 
and Woodstock, a great portion of which goes directly into farm development and farm 
upkeep in the agricultural district tributary to Memphis, and as president of this important 
Memphis corporation, Mr. Harris has kept closely in touch, at all times, with conditions 
in his native city and its surroundings. He has always been active and in sympathy with 
every movement for the advancement of Memphis, and willing to lend a helping hand to 
any plan with that in view. He is a member of the Memphis Country Club, of the Tennes- 
see Club in Memphis and the Chamber of Commerce in Memphis ; also of the Noonday 
Club, Racquet Club and Chamber of Commerce in Saint Louis. Air. Harris and Aliss Alarie 
Bond were married November 28, 1898. The union has been blessed with two children, 
Alisses Xalissa Reid Harris and Janet Bond Harris. 




858 



3f. ft. IoUcUjcU 




J 



"AMES II. I.< (VEWELL, planter, auto- 
mobile dealer and one of the leading 
citizens of ( >sceola, Arkansas, was 
horn near that little city, December 6, 1874. 
the son of John A. and Margaret ( Edring- 
ton) Lovewell. His father had moved to 
Mississippi County in 1856 from Warrick 
County, Indiana, where he was horn in 
1848. His mother was a daughter of Wil- 
liam P>. Edrington, pioneer mi whose planta- 
tion Osceola is located. Mr. John A. Cove- 
well was conspicuous in the public affairs 
of Mississippi County, where he was sheriff 
for many years, during which time he made 
a most efficient peace officer. The son 
served as deputy sheriff under his father, 
beginning in that capacity at the time that 
he was seventeen years of age. In the 
meantime he had received his education in 
the public schools of Mississippi County 
and in Searcy College. Beginning in 1904. 
he served for two terms, aggregating four 
years as the clerk of the County Court of 
Mississippi County. Between periods in 
public office he was connected with the 
Hank of Osceola. Following the tragic 
death of Mr. William Eberhart, Mr. Love- 
well was appointed a member of the Saint 
Francis Levee Board, where he served as 
a valuable member of that important body 
for five years continuously from 1909 to 
1914. During the years "1909, 1910 and 
1911, the board assigned to him the duty 
of collecting the levee taxes in his county, and he got all that there was coming to the 
levee system, and was highly complimented for the efficiency of his work along that line 
and for the accurate manner in which his books and accounts were kept. In fact in the 
large number of positions of trust in which Mr. Lovewell has been placed, he has in every case 
proved himself worthy and added to his reputation for efficiency, capacity and honesty. 
Since long before he reached his majority, Mr. Lovewell has been one of the most active 
figures in the public affairs of Mississippi County. Mrs. Lovewell acquired by inheritance 
a large interest in the Nodena Plantation, one of the finest pieces of property in Missis- 
sippi C'ountv. He also owns the home place where he was horn, some three mile- west of 
Osceola. lie and Miss Sue Hampson of Memphis, Tennessee, were married March 8. 
1905. They have two children: Mary Clay and Margaret Edrington Lovewell. 



859 



is>. j&. jflorrtson 



SAMUEL SETTLE MORRISON, 
Earle, Arkansas, one of the leading 
merchants of the Saint Francis Basin, 
is a native of Rossville, Tennessee, where he 
was born November 8, 1878, the son of 
William M. and Carrie N. Morrison. He 
received his early education in the common 
schools of Fayette County and then at- 
tended the college at Essary Springs, Ten- 
nessee, later completing his education in 
Memphis. At the age of twenty years, Mr. 
Morrison entered the business world on 
very close to the bottom rung of the lad- 
der, for he went to work at twelve and a 
half dollars per month and his board for 
F. F. Boyd at Rossville. He remained there 
for four years, during that time gaining 
experience and acquiring habits of industry 
which have enabled him to mount rapidly 
up the ladder of success in the mercantile 
line. In 1902 he yearned for a broader 
field for his activities and abilities than 
was afforded in the small town of Ross- 
ville and came to Memphis, where he 
worked for a time for the old shoe house 
of Goodbar & Company. Then he formed 
a connection with Dockery & Emerson and 
on January 1, 1903, he went to Cub Lake, 
DeSoto County, Mississippi, where that 
firm owned large planting and mercantile 
interests. He remained with that firm for 
six years, and on the last day of 1909 he 
went to Earle, where he entered the employ 
of the Earle Supply Company as bookkeeper. Fascinated with the fertility of the lands of 
that section and with the spirit then manifest in the people to make Earle a city, Mr. 
Morrison quickly identified himself with the community and since that time has been one 
of the most active factors in the wonderful progress of that city. Within a year after his 
first connection with the Earle Supply Company, he had bought at interest in the concern. 
On January 1, 1911, Mr. Morrison and Mr. W. B. Gray, a leading cotton factor of Mem- 
phis, formed a partnership and since that time they have operated the Earle Supply Com- 
pany as general merchants and cotton buyers, with Mr. Morrison in active charge of the 
business. In addition to this business, Mr. Morrison is an extensive and successful planter 
of cotton. Mr. Morrison and Miss Mary E. Humphreys of Collierville, Tennessee, were 
married June 28, 1911. This union has not been blessed by any child. 




860 



ft. ft. $eel 




H 



AL HOLT PEEL, Jonesborq, Ar- 
kansas, head of the biggest general 
insurance business in northeastern 

Arkansas, was horn on a farm near Holl) 
Springs, Mississippi, November 7, 1881, the 
son of Volney and Susan | Holt) reel. He 
attended private and public schools of 
Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Thomas Hall 
Military Academy at Holly Springs, and at 
the age of seventeen years went to work 
for the Frisco System as telegraph operator, 
and later in the offices of the assistant 
superintendent at Birmingham and the su- 
perintendent at Memphis. He remained in 
that line of work for three years and then 
went to the Postal Telegraph Company as 
an operator. In 190.5 he went to work for 
the New York Life Insurance Company 
and for the next four years he was a solici- 
tor out of the Memphis office. He and the 
Honorable P. Harry Kelly, in 1907. formed 
the Kelly-Peel Insurance Agency in Mem- 
phis, which they operated successfully until 
Judge Kelly was elected vice-mayor and fire 
and police commissioner of the city. Mr. 
Peel continued to operate the business alone 
for a year after Judge Kelly severed his 
connection with it, and then, in January, 
1913, moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas, where 
he established the West-Peel Insurance 
Agency. This partnership was dissolved 
in 1917, since which time Mr. Peel has 
operated there alone under the firm name 
of Hal H. Peel & Company, and developed the largest and most successful general insur- 
ance agency in his section of the State. But in doing tin's, he has not devoted all of his 
t'me and energy to his own affairs. When the World War broke out, Mr. Peel entered 
heart and purse into the various patriotic campaigns, putting his time and his money into 
every drive. There were seventeen of these and in every one of them he took a very active 
part, either as sales manager, publicity director or chairman, contributing largely to the 
success of all of them. Mr. Peel, Gordon Frierson, B. H. Berger, T. J. Ellis and V. C. 
Pettie formed a voluntary commission which purchased a beautiful monument to the soldiers 
and sailors of Craighead County, which was unveiled May 1, 1920. Mr. Peel is a member 
of the Christian Church; Masonic Fraternity; Elks; Knights of Pythias; Chamber of Com- 
merce and Lions. He and Miss Grace Morse were married March 2. 1907. They have no 
child. 



861 



C. J. JBarnett 




c 



HARLES JONES BARNETT, who 

has done so much to make the chil- 
dren of Memphis, Tennessee, have 
happier young lives, loves to see them play- 
ing in the public parks and wading in the 
pool at Gaston Park, which he raised the 
money to build, for he then thinks of the 
days when he, as a child of eight years, 
went to work in the coal mines under the 
East Tennessee Mountains where he was 
reared. He was born in Tracy City, Feb- 
ruary 4, 1872, the son of James and Mollie 
E. Barnett. He was able to get a little 
education in the village schools as a child 
before he went into the mines, but has been 
an apt pupil in the school of experience 
since that time. At the age of seventeen 
years, he went to Ensley, Alabama, where 
he worked for the Tennessee Coal, Iron & 
Railroad Company as a machinist, later 
switching by day and hostling at night. 
Later he was fireman for the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railroad out of Water Valley, Missis- 
sippi, and in 1895 became a locomotive en- 
gineer with that citv as his headquarters. 
Six months later he was transferred to 
Memphis and ever since that date has been 
with the Illinois Central system. He has 
no superior at the throttle. Since the in- 
auguration of the Panama Limited train, 
he has handled it between Memphis and 
Canton, Mississippi. In 1904 he was a 
member of the committee which brought to 
Memphis in 1906 the national convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. 
He served for one year on the brotherhood's general board of adjustment, and from 1894 
to 1896 he was secretary and treasurer of the brotherhood for the Illinois Central system. 
In 1910 he was Democratic county commiteeman for the Thirteenth ward and chairman of 
the executive committee. He was a member of the City Recreation Commission from 1 ( '14 
to 1916 and the following year served as a member of the advisory board of the Juvenile 
Court, in both of which positions his kindly disposition and sound judgment were of great 
value to children of Memphis. During the World War, he served with C. P. J. Mooney, 
John D. Martin, Doctor L. L. Alexander of Paris and Doctor F. M. McRee of Union City 
on the district war exemption board for West Tennessee. Mr. Barnett and Miss Alma A. 
Moritz were married March 24, 1897. They have one son, Charles Dillon Barnett, born in 
1902. 



862 



Mv. 3. I. Crook 



J ERE LAWRENCE CROOK, A.M., 
.M.D.. F.A.C.'S., Jackson, Tennessee, 
one of the leading surgeons of the M id- 
South and active in church, social and finan- 
cial circles in his community, was 6'orn in 
Henderson, Tennessee, March 10. 1874, the 
son of Doctor Joseph A. and Martha ( Caw- 
thon) Crook. After having received his 
literary education at Union University, 
Jackson, where he received his degree of 
master of arts in 1892. he decided to follow 
in the steps of his father, who is a distin- 
guished physician and surgeon, and went to 
Yanderbilt University. Nashville, Tennes- 
see, where he was awarded his degree of 
doctor of medicine m 1894. Soon after 
having been graduated. Doctor Crook at- 
tended the meeting of the American Med 
ical Association in San Francisco and 
while in California accepted a position as 
assistant superintendent of the Sacramento 
City & County Hospital. Returning to 
Jackson in 1895. he began, in partnership 
with his father, the practice of his profes- 
sion. He was successful from the begin- 
ning. Later he took post graduate courses 
in Xew York and Philadelphia and at the 
Mayo Clinic at Rochester, Minnesota, and 
in 1908, in connection with his father, In- 
founded the Crook Sanatorium, a twenty 
five-bed modern private hospital. He now 
is the personal owner and chief surgeon of 
this successful institution. Doctor Crook's 
standing with his fellows is shown bj the fact that he has been elected president of the 
Tennessee Medical Association and Madison County Medical Society. He was one of tin- 
founders of the Southern Medical Association, and lias served as secretary and chairman of 
its surgical section. He has also served as president of the Rotary Club and was one of 
the founders of the Jackson Country Club. He was at one time president of the Y. M. 
C. A. and is a director in the Second National Bank. Doctor Crook- was married first to 
Miss Jennie June Jones of St. Louis. Missouri, April 21, 1898. Sh; died in 1902, leaving 
two sons, Senter C. and Jere L. Junior, the former of whom was an aviator during tin- 
World War. He was married again June 17. 1914, to Miss Millian Cooke Green of Cul- 
peper. Virginia. Their children are: Joseph A. II, and William Grant. 




863 



H. 31. Smutt) 




K 



EFF ALEXANDER SMITH, Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, one of the leading 
wholesale dealers of the Mid-South 
in lumber, specializing in Southern yellow 
pine, cypress and shingles, but handling 
also hardwoods, is the son of a distin- 
guished divine in the Presbyterian Church, 
U. S., and is a living example of the cor- 
rectness of recent statistics which show 
that a larger per cent of the sons of preach- 
ers succeed in business life than is true of 
the sons of men in any other line. Mr. 
Smith was born in Athens, Georgia, Febru- 
ary 7, 1884, the son of the Reverend X. 
Keff Smith, D.D., and Carrie Cleveland 
(Scudder) Smith. He received his early 
education in the grammar schools in the 
various Southern cities in which has father 
was serving as a minister. At the age of 
fifteen years while attending the high 
school at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, he be- 
gan work, and at the age of seventeen years, 
while at Hardin Collegiate Institute, a 
branch of Central University of Kentucky, 
quit school to go to work for the Queen & 
Crescent Railroad system at New Orleans 
at a salary of $25.00 per month. He 
learned stenography without a teacher and 
became so proficient that in a short time 
he had been advanced to the private secre- 
taryship to the assistant auditor. After six 
years with the railroad company, he re- 
ceived a telegram in May, 1907, from W. H. 
Sullivan, general manager of the Great Southern Lumber Company, which was then 
building at Bogalusa, Louisiana, to come to see him. The result of the visit was that Mr. 
Smith became Mr. Sullivan's chief clerk and private secretary. Mr. Smith remained with 
that company for eight and a half years, five of which were spent as traveling salesman, in 
which capacity he earned a promotion to assistant sales manager. On January 1, 1916. Mr. 
Smith organized the Smith-Carothers Lumber Company, which was dissolved August 1. 
1918, since which time Mr. Smith has been in business alone. He represents the whole- 
sale yellow pine classification in the Memphis Rotary Club, and is a member of the Mem- 
phis Chamber of Commerce, the Hoo-Hoos, the Colonial Country Club and the Evergreen 
Presbyterian Church. He and Miss Alma L. Oswald of Charleston, South Carolina, were 
married October 30, 1913. Their, children are Florence Cleveland and Alma Douglass. 



864 



». $. Sail 




Wi 



'ILLIA.M I'KESTON HALL, 
Memphis, Tennessee, retired steam- 
boat man and manufacturer of 
staves, was born in McLemoresville, Car- 
roll County, Tennessee, January 4, 1843, 
the son of Alfred P. and Dorcas Eliza- 
beth (Rochell) Hall. He was attending 
the common schools in Huntingdon, Ten- 
nessee, when the Civil War began and left 
school to join his father's company in the 
Confederate Army. The father, of pure 
Scotch lineage, was a gallant Confederate 
officer as he had been while first sheriff of 
Carroll County. He also had been a mem- 
ber of the State' General Assembly from 
that county. .Mr. 1 1 all's grandfather was 
a colonel in the Revolutionary Army. His 
mother was of pure French blood. With 
the collapse of the Confederacy. Mr. Hall 
returned to Huntingdon and completed his 
education, and then read law for a year, but 
at the end of that time decided that he 
did not care for a professional career. In- 
stead he went into the mercantile business 
and operated a store at Dyersburg, Ten- 
nessee, from 1873 to 1876. What now is 
the Illinois Central Railroad through Dyers- 
burg was completed in 1873 only from 
Memphis to Covington, and it was not until 
1882 that the connection was made there 
which gave Dyersburg direct rail connec- 
tion with Memphis. For the last six years 
of the time that this connection was lack- 
ing, Mr. Hall operated a steamboat between Memphis and Dyersburg, but when Hatchie 
River was bridged in 1882, he changed his northern terminus to New Madrid. Missouri. 
For the next eight years he operated a boat of his own in that trade, doing a business not 
only profitable to himself, but at the same time of great service to the river towns. In 
1890 he sold his steamboat to the Lee Line and retired from the riv?r, going into the man- 
ufacture of slack staves. He was a pioneer in that line in this section of the country and 
built one of the first mills for that purpose on Wolf River in Memphis. It now is operated 
by the Anderson-Tully Company. Mr. Hall operated here under the name of the W. P. 
Hall Stave Company, with a big plant on Wisconsin Avenue. He has made Memphis his 
home since 1882, alwavs active in every movement for the improvement of the community 
and liberal both with his time and his means for any worthy cause. Mr. Hall has never 
married. 



865 



m. ar. ptts 




w; 



r ILLIAM THOMAS PITTS. In- 
dianola, Mississippi, best known as 
"Pitts, the Land Man," who has 
been such an active factor in the develop- 
ment of Sunflower County, was born in 
Maysville, Madison County, Alabama, Oc- 
tober 12, 1869, the son of Alexander Calvin 
and Fannie (Mitchell) Pitts. At the age 
of thirteen years of age he went to work 
for his own living. As a mere youth he 
was agent and operator for the old Mem- 
phis & Charleston Railroad at Brownsboro, 
Alabama. Then he went with the old East 
Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad as 
relief agent between Rome, Georgia, and 
Selma. Alabama, and later with the Mobile 
& Ohio Railroad as telegraph operator at 
Columbus, Mississippi, during five years. 
Tn 1891 he went to Indianola. Mississippi, 
for the Southern Railway. He was rail- 
road agent, banker, telegraph operator and 
general bureau of information at Indianola 
when that now prosperous city was but little 
more than a wide place in the road. In 
1899 he went into the hardware business, 
the first store of its kind in Indianola. He 
organized the Bank of Indianola, was its 
first cashier and later became its president. 
In 1900, Mr. Pitts installed the first elec- 
tric light plant in Indianola. Probably the 
one thing that he did which was of the 
greatest benefit to the community was in 
the organization and building of the Indi- 
anola Compress & Storage Company. He built the Indianola Brick & Tile Company. He 
promoted the Planters Cotton Oil Company, a $100,000 institution. He also built the 
Hotel Pitts. Back in 1898 he went into the real estate business. The first year he sold 
land to the value of $600. In 1919 the value of the lands whose titles changed through 
his office aggregated five million dollars and he could have sold more had he been able to 
find the land for sale. He began selling land at some $10 per acre and sold it up as high 
as $500. In 1915 he organized the real estate firm of Pitts & Weeks, Mr. A. B. Weeks 
being the junior partner. They have their main office in Indianola with a branch in 
Monroe, Louisiana, in charge of Mr. A. C. Pitts. His largest deal was the sale of sixty- 
two thousand acres at $25 per acre. Later he could have sold it for $150 per acre. Mr. 
Pitts and Miss Mamie Lena Gardner of Columbus, Mississippi, were married November 
25, 1890. T. M. Pitts is their onlv child. 



866 



m ft. ftaplep 




W- 1 



'll-I-IA.M IIFXRY HA.YLEY, 
.Memphis, Tennessee, executive 
manager of the Chamber of Com- 
merce, in which capacity hi' has been an 
active factor in the commercial, industrial 
and civic development of the community, 
is a native of Pes \rc. Arkansas, where 
he was horn January 31, 1871, the third son 
Of Patrick Henry and Sarah (Stewart) 
Hayley. lie was educated in private 
schools in Memphis and finished his course 
as a special student in Colorado College. 
After his return from college he operated 
for a time the Abbingtdn Plantation which 
belonged to his family near Des Arc. How- 
ever, the major portion of .Mr. Hayley's 
activity has been in Memphis. He received 
his early business training with two of the 
oldest cotton factoring firms in the city. 
Going into business for himself, he was 
senior member of the firm of Hayley & 
I '.cine, dealers in the products of cotton 
seed. He was one of the organizers of the 
Tennessee Fibre Company, the pioneer in 
using the first successful method of separat- 
ing the lint from the hull of the cotton 
seed, which industry has become of great 
importance in the South. Mr. Hayley is 
associated in this enterprise with Mr. W: C. 
Johnson, his two brothers, Messrs. John A. 
and Hugh S. Hayley, and Mr. I). M. Arm- 
strong. Mr. Hayley was also president of 
the Planters Cotton Company of Des Arc 
for a number of years. For seven years he was forced to free himself from business 
responsibilities because of ill health. After this he traveled extensively in Furope and 
became deeply intereste 1 in the betterment of civic conditions, and especially in better roads 
for the Memphis territory. Returning home with his health greatly improved, he became 
chairman of the Good Roads Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, where he rendered 
service of inestimable value to Memphis and a large portion of the South. When the United 
States entered the World War. the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. Mr. J. M. 
Tuther, volunteered and was commissioned for active service. He requested that his friend, 
Mr. Hayley, lie elected his successor. \s Major Tuther preferred to remain in the army, 
the officers of the Chamber of Commerce requested Mr. Hayley to remain with the organ- 
ization. Mr. Hayley and Miss Cornelia Eugenie Falconnet of Nashville, Tennessee, were 
married, August 22, 1896. They have one son, Frederic. 



867 



Jf . #. $routt 



FREDERICK GEORGE PROUTT, 
Memphis, Tennessee, consulting en- 
gineer, specializing in designing and 
operating public utility and industrial 
plants, was born in Bowmanville, Canada, 
November 27, 1870, the son of Mark James 
and Martha ( Burk ) Proutt. He was edu- 
cated in Canadian schools and the engi- 
neering department of the General Electric 
Company. He was assistant to the general 
manager of the Maiden Electric Company 
at Maiden, Massachusetts, from 1894 to 
1897, and came to Memphis, April, 1897, 
as superintendent of the Memphis Light & 
Power Company. While he was connected 
with that company he installed its under- 
ground conduit system for the distribution 
of its electric current. He remained with 
the Memphis company until the end of the 
year 1905 and then became manager of the 
Jackson (Mississippi) Railway, Light & 
Power Company and designed and installed 
its electric power and gas plants. He man- 
aged that enterprise for two years, then 
returned to Memphis, where, since January 
1. 1908, he has been in business as a con- 
sulting engineer except for one year during 
the World War, during which he served as 
advisory engineer for the War Finance 
Corporation, Washington, D. C, and in 
making a survey of Tennessee industries in 
1917 for the Naval Consulting Board. He 
has designed a number of public utility 
plants in this section, including the water pumping systems for Brownsville, Tennessee; Friar 
Point, and Laurel, Misissippi ; Blytheville, Osceola and Luxora, Arkansas ; and also the light 
and power plants for Brownsville and Binghamton, Tennessee, and Cleveland and Tunica, 
Mississippi. He is president of the Consumers Water Company of Blytheville, and secre- 
tary of the Home Light & Ice Company of Cleveland. In addition to these, he has designed 
a large number of plants for big private corporations in this section of the country. At 
the urgent request of Mayor Paine and at a personal sacrifice, Mr. Proutt in 1920 consented 
to become chairman of the Memphis Water Commission. He is also the representative of 
the City of Memphis in the matter of the appraisal of the gas and electric plants for the 
purpose of fixing new rates for the Memphis Gas & Electric Company. He is a trustee of 
the Memphis & Shelby County Tuberculosis Society and the William R. Moore School of 
Technology. Mr. Proutt and Miss Laura Jane Yarnold were married July 15, 1905. 
They have two daughters, Jean and Marjorie. 




868 



Me j^ameteon 




r 



KE SAMELSON, leading tobacconist 
of the Mid-South, is a native of Saint 
Louis, although he has lived in Mem- 
phis since he was two years of age. His 
parents were L. and Caroline Samelson 
and only a few years after they came to 
Memphis the father died, leaving little 
Isaac the main support of his widowed 
mother and several younger children. At 
Fourteen years he went into the store of 
Sol Coleman, and after three years of in- 
tense work there he began traveling for 
Sternberg & Lee, jobbers in cigars and 
tobaccos. Still only a lad. but of a most 
engaging manner, and full of energy, he 
made his first trip up the Paducah & Mem- 
phis Railroad, now the Illinois Central, 
then ending at Covington. The idea of 
such a small youth out on his own hook and 
still so well posted was in itself catchy, and 
that night he loaded Covington with the 
best cigars that it had ever had, leaving on 
the one train next morning for Memphis. 
For five years his clientele grew rapidly, 
and at the end of that time, in addition to 
supporting his family, he had saved $500 
with which he opened a cigar and tobacco 
business for himself in a space of fifteen by 
twenty-five feet on Main Street, just north 
of Monroe Avenue, where he has been 
ever since and where he has built up one of 
the best businesses in the country. Mainly 
due to the choice line of cigars that he 
carried, Memphis for years has enjoyed the distinction of consuming more fine cigars than 
any other city of its size in the United States. In the years that the railroads were accus- 
tomed to sell tickets wholesale at reduced rates to tide them over crises, Mr. Samelson was 
a large buyer and one of the biggest dealers of them in the United States. He prospered in 
that as in the cigar and tobacco business and as the years rolled on, he widened his range 
of operations, opening branches in New York, Chicago and Birmingham. His investments 
have been wide and judicious. He is a director in the Manhattan Savings Bank & Trust 
Companv. and a member of the B'nai B'rith. Chamber of Commerce, and Elks, Moose, Rex 
and City clubs. He has traveled widely. He and Miss Celia Lowenstein were married in 
1893. Their children are Miss Caroline: Miss Babette, now Mrs. Herbert Herff; Mrs. 
Dorothv Goldstein ; Lester E., and Ira Samelson. 



869 



Babe Bennon 




D 



AVE DERMON, Memphis. Ten- 
nessee, one of the largest and most 
successful dealers in real estate, is 
a native of Kiev, Russia, where he was 
born, April 27, 1884, the son of Bee and 
Annie Dermon. He attended the public 
schools of his native city for five years and 
remained there until he had attained his 
majority, when he sought a wider range of 
freedom of activity and religion than was 
in sight in Russia. He came to the United 
States in 1905 and proceeded directly to 
Memphis, where he opened a small tinshop. 
He prospered in this and at the end of five 
years he added dealing in real estate in a 
small way to his tin business. He had been 
an efficient and successful tinner and when 
he entered the wider field he showed a 
range of vision that was amazing to even 
his best friends. For years the property 
(in Union and Monroe Avenues in the vicin- 
ity of the Southern Railway had been de- 
preciating in sale value and in earning 
capacity. He more than any other one 
man in the city of Memphis seemed to have 
a foresight of the future of that property. 
He bought heavily of it when it was cheap, 
made sales as the property which he owned 
advanced and reinvested, always with the 
keenest judgment, but ever willing to pay 
the price if only the property had a future 
to it. Now it is apparent to all that the 
natural and in fact only location for the 
automobile business was in the direction and locality where he made his heaviest purchases. 
Mr. Dermon now is a wealthy man for the simple reason that what now is apparent to all 
was apparent to him when much of that section of the city was covered with tumbling 
old frame buildings. Recently he sold to C. D. Smith for $175,000 a piece of property 
on Union Avenue. Another of his recent sales was to the Union Motor Car Company for 
$100,000. He still owns much property on Union. Madison and Monroe Avenues and 
Pauline Street. But although now wealthy, Mr. Dermon still maintains his tinshop and is 
just as careful to turn out good work there as when that was his sole means of livelihood. 
He and Miss Mollie Faine were married in Kiev in 1905, just before they left for the 
United States. They have three children: Harry, Nathan and Adeline. Mr. Dermon is a 
member of the Chamber of Commerce, Shrine and Rex Club. 



870 



$ugfj ^umpfjreps 




H 



UGH HUMPHREYS, Memphis, 
Tennessee, head of a firm which is 
one of the largest dealers and ex- 
porters of cotton seed products in the cotton 
belt, and active in many movements for the 
improvement of the community in which 
he is one of the leading citizens, was born 
on the Old Raleigh Road just east of the 
present city limits of .Memphis on February 
17, 1876. lie is the son of J. Henry and 
Annie E. Humphreys. lie received his 
early education in the neighboring schools, 
hut when only fourteen years of age came 
tn Memphis and went t < > work for Hugh 
Pettit & Company, at the same time pur- 
suing his studies in the night schools of the 
city. When he reached his majority, he 
went into business for himself. In con- 
junction with Mr. Herbert Godwin. Mr. 
Humphreys organized in 1898 the Hum- 
phreys-Godwin Company, dealing in the 
products of cotton seed. Mr. Humphreys 
for a number of years has been and still 
is the president and active head of the con- 
cern. Under his aggressive direction the 
business has grown steadily until now it is 
recognized as one of the largest and most 
reliable dealers in those products. It does 
a tremendous business not only all over the 
United States, but also in foreign countries. 
He occupied during the World War a posi- 
tion in Washington probably the most vital 
to the South of any of the governmental 
functions, and one of the most important to the whole country. It was in the Food 
Administration in charge of the cotton seed industry. He drew the rules and regulations 
for the war-time operation of all the cotton seed mills and the handling of the manufac- 
tured product of cotton seed. That this was done with the fairness which can come only 
from the strictest integrity coupled with thorough knowledge of all lines of the business is 
conceded by all. Mr. Humphreys has taken no part in politics, but is a member of the 
Memphis Municipal River & Rail Terminal Commission, where he with his two associates 
is endeavoring to construct a river terminal and to restore river traffic that Memphis may 
secure cheaper transportation and not lose her preferential rail freight rates. He is also 
vice-president of Zone 2 of the Mississippi Valley Association. Mr. Humphreys and Miss 
Flournoy Selden were married January 7. 1 
Selden. 



1904. Their children are : Elise, Herbert and 



871 



3T. C. ^atotfjorne 




T! 



\HE late John Clarke Hawthorne, 
Jonesboro, Arkansas, attorney and 
financier and planter, long one of the 
leading figures in the development along 
all good lines of Northeastern Arkansas, 
was a native of Tennessee, where he was 
born February 22, 1851, in Benton County. 
He was the son of Robert Harrison and 
Elizabeth ( Barker) Hawthorne, Robert 
Hawthorne having been born in Georgia 
in 1804 and enlisted in the Confederate 
Army in 1861 and served under General 
Forrest and General Joseph E. Johnston, 
and was at Shiloh and numerous other bat- 
tles until February, 1865, when he was dis- 
charged on account of ill health. His 
grandfather, Joseph Hawthorne, was a 
soldier in the American Revolution, having 
enlisted in the spring of 1779 in Colonel 
Richard Winn's and Colonel Thomas Tay- 
lor's regiments and was in the battle of 
Stono. Mr. Hawthorne was admitted to 
the bar in 1876 and practiced his profession 
at Corning, Arkansas, for nine years until 
1885, when he moved to Jonesboro, becom- 
ing at that time the district attorney for the 
Saint Louis Southwestern Railway Com- 
pany, which position he held until his death. 
He enjoyed a lucrative practice, and was 
interested and a stockholder and director in 
several banks and other prosperous cor- 
porations in Jonesboro, and the owner of a 
plantation in Crittenden County, Arkansas. 
He took an active interest in the construction of levees to protect the Saint Francis Basin, 
and served as director of the Saint Francis Levee District for several years and was attor- 
ney for the District for four years. He was elected state senator in 1880 and served two 
terms with distinction. Judge Hawthorne was married to Miss Elizabeth Eleanor Beloatt 
in Corning, July 11, 1876. They had three children: Donald Kent Hawthorne, who was 
born April 25, 1877, and married to Miss Rowena Davies, December 12, 1899, and after 
her death to Mrs. Mary Mast Buwyer, and is now engaged in the practice of law in Little 
Rock, Arkansas; John Hannibal Hawthorne, who was born November 1. 1879, and married 
to Miss Calla Wilson on the 19th day of March, 1902, and was associated with his father 
in the practice of law at Jonesboro, Arkansas ; and Miss Blanche Hawthorne, who was 
born September 25, 1881, and married Virgil Carpenter Pettie, December- 21, 1901, who 
resides at Little Rock and is Vice-President of the England National Bank at that place. 
Judge Hawthorne died August 25, 1920. 



872 



Capt. J. M. Pracfctn 




I 



N the death of Captain lame- Madison 
Brackin on November 12, 1919, not onlj 
his native county of I )yer, hut the en 
tire State of Tennessee, losl one of it- mosl 
highly respected md useful citizens. He 
could have- said truthfully, I have dene the 
State some service, but he asked of his 
State no persona] reward, being satisfied 
that his service had been for the general 
weal. Captain Brackin was born Decem- 
ber 2. 1852, on Island No. 21 in the Missis 
sippi river and spent his youth and young 
manhood there. The educational advan- 
tages there at that time wife near the zero 
point, and the only chance along that line- 
that he had was a few days at a time in 
the county common schools, lie remained 
at the home of hi- parents, Isaac and 
Martha Hendric Brackin until 1875. when 
he moved to Dyersburg, where his hrst 
work was in the flour mill of A. M. Stevens. 
Remaining there for a. year, he moved to 
the neighboring town of Newbern and 
spent also a year there in the same line of 
work. Returning to Dyersburg in 1877, he 
worked two years for the Childs Harrison 
Drvgoods Company. In 1879 he married 
Miss Georgia Stevens, daughter of his first 
employer, who was his devoted companion 
until the day of his death and still mourns 
his loss. In the same year he became mas- 
ter of the steamboal Alt". Stevens, which 
plied between Dyersburg, Memphis and 
Saint I. otiis. and it was in 1 1 1 ; 1 1 capacity that he laid the foundation for his estate. Its first 
trade was in towing lumber to Saint Louis and bringing back freight to points on the Mis- 
sissippi and Forked Deei Rivers. Having been in the mercantile hitsiness. In- added deal- 
ings to his business and it proved a lucrative venture. He and Mr. Stevens also entire 1 
the saw mill and lumber line and succeeded wonderfully in it also. Captain Brackin < \ r 
took a most active part in politics, being in the town council for many years, serving on 
the staffs of Governors Patterson, Rye and Roberts, and was for six years a member of 
the State election commission, hut never sought a lucrative office for himself. He died in 
Nashville while on business of the State. He was a devout member of the Methodisl 
Church, having become a Sunday school teacher before he was twenty vcars of age. 
Albert lames Brackin and Miss Marie Louise, now Mrs. John A. Atkins, are his children. 



873 



Jacob 3f. $eres 




T 



I HE late Jacob Joseph Peres, was one 
of the most scholarly men that ever 
lived in Memphis, as well as a most 
successful business man, honored by being 
the first of his people elected to public office 
in this section, and highly respected by all 
who knew him. A native of Holland, he was 
born at Haarlem, February IS. 1830. the 
son of Joseph and Sarah (Davidson) Peres. 
His father died when the lad was only two 
years of age, and he was brought up by and 
received his education from an uncle. He 
attended the schools and Hebrew Seminary 
in Haarlem, and, by reason of standing at 
the head of his class, was able to finish his 
course at Leyden upon a stipend from the 
King of Holland. He became rabbi of the 
congregation at Gouda, Holland. In 1857, 
he came to America and spent a vear in 
Philadelphia. The next year he moved to 
Memphis and the year following established 
the merchandise brokerage firm of Jacob 
J. Peres, still standing high here under the 
name of Jacob J. Peres & Company. For 
a time here, Mr. Peres was preacher of the 
Congregation Children of Israel, and also 
rabbi of the Congregation Beth El Emeth. 
A profound scholar and accomplished lin- 
quist, Mr. Peres had taught a private school 
of his own in Philadelphia. He opened one 
here and also taught languages in the pri- 
vate school of Willoughby Armstrong. He 
was also admitted to the bar, and lectured 
widelv on literature and languages. He was a member of the B'nai E'rith and the former 
K. S. B. In 1866. Mr. Peres was elected a member of the Memphis City Board of Educa- 
tion, and chosen its president, probably only second to Judah P. Benjamin fu the South as 
a member of his race to be elected to public office. Two of his sons. Israel and Hardwig, 
have succeeded him r>ince not only as members, but also as presidents of that body, an 
honor unique in the annals of Memphis. Mr. Peres was married May 24. 1854, to Miss 
Eva Chuts, daughter of a distinguished rabbi in his home city, who had helped him greatly 
as a lad. To them were born ten children : Joseph, Bernard, Sarah.. Hardwig, Varina, 
Julius, Leah, Israel, Leo and Clara. In the score of years that he lived in Memphis, no 
man was a greater factor than he for the mental and moral progress of the city. At the 
age of only forty-nine years, he succumbed to the last yellow fever epidemic, in October, 
1879, mourned by the entire community. 



874 



Militant Counts 




I 



N the death of William Counts, on 
May 2X, 1920, not only the city of 
Clarksdale, where he lived, but the en- 
tire Mississippi Delia, lost one of it- most 
useful and most beloved citizens. Mr. 
Counts was honi in Canton. Kentucky, 
March 3, 1873, the son of Jack and Sarah 
1 OUntS. lie attended the common schools 
of his native county until he was twelve 
years of age and then went to work on a 
farm. At the age of thirteen years he 
moved from Kentucky to Coahoma County, 
Mississippi, where his father had acquired 
some land and went to work on it. His in- 
dustry from the beginning told in the rich 
alluvium of the Delta. He continued his 
connection with his father until he was 
twenty-five years of age and then, in 1898, 
he went into business for himself as a 
planter with the accompanying merchandise 
business. From that time forward his 
progress was more rapid. He went through 
all of the vicissitudes which befell the Delta 
planters for thirty-four years and with them 
shared in the prosperous seasons. His 
judgment and foresight were such that the 
overdraft of the lean years never consumed 
the surplus of the preceding fat ones. As 
the surplus from his planting became larger, 
Mr. Counts began making other invest- 
ments. He acquired large holdings in 
Washington and Warren counties in addi- 
tion to his Coahoma County plantation. 
One of his most famous places was known as the "Hear Garden Place." It was on a trip 
of inspection of his lower Delta places that he went into Vicksburg at the end of the daj 
of May 28, 1920. He had gone to his room at a hotel in apparently his usual health and 
was preparing for dinner when the fatal stroke occurred. In addition to his land holdings, 
Mr. Counts was a holder of stock in the Planters Bank of Clarksdale; in the Peoples Com- 
press Company of Clarksdale; in the Tom James ( )il Company of Memphis, with leases of 
large acreage in the < Isage Country of Oklahoma and in Louisiana, and in the Cotton States 
Life Insurance Company. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, an Elk and a 
Knight of Pythias, loved by all who knew him and respected by the entire community 
for his sterling integrity and high ability. Mr. Counts and Miss Zipporah Burt were mar- 
ried January 5. 1898. His widow and one daughter. Miss Georgia Counts, survive him. 



875 




BOLTON SMITH 

Bolton Smith, investment banker, lawyer, scholar, oral ir 
and public spirited citizen of Memphis, Tennessee, was b im 
in Indianapolis. Indiana. July 25. 1861, the son of Francis and 
Sarah (Bolton) Smith. He attended school in Indianapolis, 
Indiana, in Dresden. Germany, and graduated from the "Col- 
lege de Geneve." Switzerland, in 1878. In 1882 he received his 
decree of LL. B. from the Central Law School of Indianapolis 
and later took the summer course in law at the Universitj oi 
Virginia. He moved to Vicksburg in the fall of that year 
and after three years there as an investment banker, he came 
to Memphis, where for thirty-five years he has been a most 
useful citizen, always active for every movement for the 
improvement of the community. For years junior member oJ the 
firm of Caldwell & Smith, he now is the head of its successor, 
Smith & Perkins. He is an Episcopalian, Rotarian. Mason, 
and a trustee of the University of Tennessee and the George 
Peabody College for Teachers and on the National Board of 
the Boy Scouts of America. Mr. Smith and Miss Grace Car- 
lile of Memphis were married, June 20, 1889. They had two 
children, Miss Louise Bolton-Smith, now dead, and Carlile 
Hi 'lion-Smith. 




A. R. TAYLOR 

Arthur Robert Taylor, for nearly fifty years in the sta- 
tionery, office supply and book business in Memphis, Tennes- 
see, one of the city's most widely known business men, 
respected by all and loved by his friends for his rigid veracity, 
sterling integrity, absolute honesty and kindly disposition, was 
born near Holly Springs, Mississippi, November 8, 1851. the 
son of Doctor William V. Taylor II and Mary C. (Jarratt) 
Taylor, and educated in Memphis and at Christian Brothers 
College, St. Louis, Missouri. In August, 1872. he entered the 
stationery business with J. S. Hatcher & Company, buying that 
business and establishing Clapp & Taylor in 1878. He bought 
the Clapp interest in January. 1885. and established the firm of 
A. R. Taylor & Company, incorporating it in 1904 under the 
present name of A. R. Taylor Company, leader in its line 
throughout the Mid-South. He was for many years president 
of the Chickasaw Club; active in the Chickasaw Guards when 
that company was considered the best drill team in the world; 
and for twenty-one years a member of the Xational Guard, 
and from 1893 to 1896 brigadier general in command of all the 
State militia. He and Miss Timmie Treadwell were married 
June 21. 1880. having two children, Starnes Treadwell, and 
A. R. Tavlor, Junior. 



876 




• J. R. PEPPER 

John Robertson Pepper, Memphis, Tennessee, capitalist, 
merchant, and of international standing in Suml.- \ school 
work, is a native of Virginia where In- was born in Montgom 
ery County, April 6, 1850. IK- came to Memphis al eighteen 
years ol age. Ik- worked in the Western Union Telegraph 
office and in IKo 1 ) went with Strattpn, Goyer >\ Company. He 
is the only survivor of that linn, which, as president, In- has 
continued under slightly changed nanus, as the Goyer Com- 
pany at Greenville ami the Greenvi I. Vfazoo City and Rose- 
dale Grocer Companies, in their respective cities in Mississippi 
IK- iv also president of the Memphis Machine Works and the 
Hernando Insurance Company ami interested in many smaller 
concerns m Memphis. Long an active member of the Metho- 
di i i hurch (South) he is president ol its Board <>i Mi 

and member of its General Sunday Scl I Board, of the 

International Sunday School Lesson Committee for eighteen 
years, chairman of the Memphis Conference Board for thirty- 
three years and superintendent ..I the First (lunch Simla 
School for thirty-nine years. He and Miss Charlese Read 
were married November IX. 1875. Their children are Mrs. A 
\V. Ketchum and Samuel McDavitt Pepper. 




C. W. THOMPSON 

< harles W. Thompson, hanker. Memphis. Tennessee, was 
born in Middleton. Tennessee, March 6, 1865, the son of 
Mr. and Mrs. I). C. Thompson. He was educated at Blue 
Mountain (Mississippi) Male Academy, and at the age of 
twenty-iine years began his husiness career as a clerk in a gen- 
eral store in Ripley. Mississippi, lie moved to Memphis in 
1895 and organized the Memphis Queensware Company, which 
concern he managed with signal success until 1 ( )14. Although 
having taken no active part in partisan politics, he was induced 
to become chairman of the Shelby County Commission in 1916, 
win ic his unswerving honesty and business experience Wi 

great benefit to the county at large. In January. 1917, he 
became president ol" the National I itj Hank of Memphis, 
which position he now holds. Mr. Thompson and Miss I ; 
ence Stratton were married November 11. 1903, and have 
four interesting children; the oldest a girl. Florence; a boy, 
Charles \V.. Jr., and a girl. BIythe, who are twins, and the 
youngest a girl. May. Mr. Thompson is treasurer of the 
Chamber of Commerce and takes an active part in all matters 
pertaining to the betterment "f his citj 



877 




J. O. HOMER 

John O. Bomer. Brownsville, Tennessee, banker, lumberman 
and public spirited citizen, was born in Lauderdale County, 
September 25. 1865, the son of T. G. and Mary Jane Bomer. 
After having received a common school education, Mr. Bomer 
and his brother. E. J., went into the lumber business with a 
small mill at Carolina, some ten miles out from Browi^ville 
and have expanded from that to where they are among the 
big hardwood producers of the South. Now they have exten- 
sive holdings of timber in Mississippi and Louisiana. Mr. E. J. 
Bomer making his headquarters in Vicksburg in charge of the 
production part of the firm of Bomer Brothers, and Mr. J. O. 
Bomer remaining in Brownsville, where he has charge of the 
sales department. Mr. Bomer is president of the Brownsville 
Bank, which he was instrumental in organizing and which is 
one of the most substantial financial institutions in its section. 
He also is a heavy stockholder in the cotton oil, water works, 
ice and light plants. He is a staunch Methodist, and has 
served several terms as mayor. Mr. Bomer and Miss Blanche 
Gatewood Anderson were married June 12. 1889. Their chil- 
dren are : J. O.. Jr.. Daniel C, Blanche Anderson and Edwin J. 




ALLEN HUGHES 

Judce Allen Huches, one of the leading members of the 
Memphis bar, is a native of Tennessee, but earned his title in 
Arkansas. He was born July 25, 1870, in Shelby County, the 
son of Thomas Newton and Mary Priscilla Hughes. He 
received his legal education in the law department of Yander- 
bilt University at Nashville, where he received his degree of 
bachelor of laws in June. 1892. In the summer of the follow- 
ing year, he went to Jonesboro, Arkansas, where he began the 
practice of his profession. Success both in the courts and in 
making friends among strangers attended his efforts from the 
first and in 1902 he was elected judge of the Second Judicial 
District of Arkansas, which position he held for four years, 
when he re-entered private practice in Jonesboro. During 
1904 he served as president of the Arkansas Bar Association. 
In 1907 Judge Hughes moved to Memphis and formed a 
co-partnership with the late William A. Percy. He is a mem- 
ber of the Kappa Sigma college fraternity; Elks; Tennessee 
Club, and Chamber of Commerce. Judge Hughes and Mi^s 
Camille Frierson were married March 19, 1896. Their chil- 
dren are: Allen. Jr., Thomas. Camille, William, James, John 
and Corinne. 



878 




J. K. HALL 

James Rankin Hall, planter and real estate man. Coving- 
ton, Tennessee, is a native of Tipton County, where In- was 
hum near Covington March 28, 1859, the son of John Nisbet 
and Sarah (Alexander) Hall. His lather having died, leaving 
two daughters and a young son, Mr. Hall went to work as a 
mere youth on their small farm to make a living for them, hi* 

will. .wed mother and himself. He had lint meager 5Cl ' 

education, but private tutorship of his wise ami cultured 

mother and early association with bis tefined and scholarly 

relatives inspired in him a desire for learning which he has 
acquired by constant reading and wide travel all over the 
I nited States, By diligence and economj he has accumulated 
wide real estate holdings as well as banking interests. He also 
controls much other property. <>t the highest character and 
most engaging manner. Mr. Hall is one of the must highlj 
respected as well as one of the most successful men in his 
county. He' is a member of the Presbyterian Church. He 
and Miss Mattie Givens were married in 1884. Their children 
are John Xisbet Hall and Miss Alice Hall, now the wifi 
Judge Richard B. Baptist His second marriage was in 1913 
to Miss Mary Virginia NfcRei 




W. S. JONES 

Professor Wharton Stew mm Jones, superintendent of the 
public school system of Memphis. Tennessee, since 1918, and 
one of the leading educators of the South, was born at 
Minerva College, near Nashville, Tennessee, September 14. 
1X4'). the son of the Reverend Sandy Elrod and Catherine 
(Stewart) Jones. His father was a preacher of the Christian 
Church and one of the leading educators of that denomina- 
tion. His mother was a sister of General A. I'. Stewart, 
C. S. A Professor Junes received his early education under 
his father and finished his course at the Kentucky I now 
Transylvania) University, graduating with first honors in a 
large class and delivering the salutatory in Crcik. From 1875 
to 1881 he was principal of Bourbon College at Paris. Ken- 
tucky, at the end of which time be came to Memphis and 
established the Memphis Military Institute. Professor Jones i- 
one of the best and most evenly educated men in the Mid- 
South, but he has specialized in mathematics, in which he has 
few equals in that section. As an executive in school manage- 
ment, he ranks among the best in the United States. Profes- 
sor buies and Miss Mattie Boyd were married in 1888 



879 




T. H. JACK SOX 

Thomas Hunt Jackson, lawyer. Memphis. Tennessee, was 
born in Colbert County, Alabama, September 26, 1854, the son 
of William M. and Thermuthis McKiernan Jackson. The 
United States Nitrate Plant No. 2 is located on the old family 
homestead. The effect of the Civil War on the family estate 
was such at the time that he was a youth that Mr. Jackson 
was able to receive no education save that in the public schools 
of Tuscumbia and he read law there. A few days after having 
attained his majority, he was admitted to the bar at Tus- 
cumbia and practiced successfully there for six years, when 
he moved to Memphis in 1881. He has ranked among tin 
leaders of the bar from the time that he came to Memphis, 
and has also taken a lively interest in public affairs. He was 
elected city attorney in 1906, serving through 1909, and also 
served one term as fire and police commissioner by appoint- 
ment of Governor Benton McMillin. He is a member of the 
Memphis Country Club, a thirty-second degree Mason, a 
Shriner and a director in the Union & Planters Bank & Trust 
Company. He and Miss Rebecca McKay were married April 
9, 1891. She died October 10. 1910. 




H. R. CHEARS 

Henry Raneolph Chears, Memphis, Tennessee, was born in 
Anne Arundel County. Maryland, November 7, 1872, the son 
of Doctor Benjamin and Sarah (Grady) Chears. He was 
educated in the University of Maryland. At the age of twenty 
years he left the university to travel for a chemical house. He 
remained on the road for several years and so successful was 
he in that line that in a short time he was promoted to sales 
manager of the company. He came to Memphis from Balti- 
more in 1905 and organized the Chears Floor & Screen Com- 
pany, the largest business of its kind in the South, which he 
has conducted ever since as president and manager. Ever 
since he came to Memphis he has been active in nearly every 
movement for the "upbuilding of the community. He is vice- 
president of the Chamber of Commerce and one of its most 
active members. His most conspicuous work along that line 
recently has been as chairman of the Chamber of Commeice 
committee on publicity for the Tri-State Hotel. He is a mem- 
ber of the Rotary and Colonial Country Clubs. Mr. Chears 
and Miss Lillian Adams were married August 30, 1912. They 
have one child, Virginia Randolph Chears. 



880 




JUDGE K. B. BAPTIST 

Richard Banister Baptist, lawyer, Covington, Tenm ei 
judge of the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit, was born April '». 1X74. 
in Mason, Tennessee, the s.on of Nathaniel Wilson and Belle 
Boyd Baptist. The family moved to I ovington when Judge 
Baptist was a mere child and it was there thai he grew up 
and received his early education. He then wenl to Webb's 
School, Bellbuckle, Tennessee, and finished at Hampden SJd- 
nej College, Virginia. In 189S he was licensed to practici law 
and began in Covington as the junior member of the firm of 
Baptist & Baptist, his father, long a leading figure at the bar 

and in the public affairs of the State. being the senior mem- 
ber. Following the death of his lather in 1915; Judge Baptist 
practiced alone, until September, 1918, when he went upon 
the bench. During the entire career m' the Honorable Edward 
W. Carmack in both houses of the Congress, Judge Baptist 
was his private secretary, and until the end his intimate per- 
sonal and political friend. He is a Mason, an Elk and a 

member of the Presbyterian Church. .Indue Baptist and Mis- 
Alice Spencer Hall were married April 8, 1908_. Their children 
are Martha Givens, Isabel Boyd and Richard B., Junior. 




E. M. ELLIS 

Edward M \k. i s Ellis, one of the leading business men of 
Memphis, Tennessee, was horn in Marshall County, Missis- 
sippi, December 23, 1865, the son of David Alexander and 
Elizabeth (Balch) Ellis. After having finished the course in 
the public schools at home, he went to the Xew York Colli - < 
of Pharmacy where he was graduated in 1888. Returning to 
Mississippi, be opened a retail drug store iti West Point which 
he conducted successfully for ten years. At the end of that 
time he sold out and came to Memphis where he organized 
the Hessig-Ellis Drug Company, of which he was the presi- 
dent for the lust ten years of its existence anil which during 
that time bad a remarkable growth. In 1910 he sold his stock 
in that concern and organized the Ellis-Jones Drug Companj 
in 1611. of which be is the active bead and of which he has 
In en the on|\ president. L'nder his direction it has become 
one of the leading wholesale, manufacturing and importing 
drui; concerns in the Mid-South. Mr Ellis is a member of 
the Memphis Country Club, the Chamber of Commerce and 
the Five-Lakes Outing Club. He and Miss Suzanne E. Dirke 
were married November 6, 1 ( 'H1. 



SSI 




J. M. FLY 

Joseph Mason Fly. merchant, Memphis, Tennessee, is one 
of the youngest men in the city at the head of large and suc- 
cessful business institutions. Born in Memphis July 29. 1878. 
he is the son of D. Wilson and Augusta (Scott) Fly. He was 
educated in private schools in Memphis and finished in New 
York City. At the age of eighteen, he entered the employ of 
Fly & Hobson Company. His father, its president, was no 
believer in favoritism and prescribed a spartan-like course of 
training for his son, demanding hard work before promotion. 
Young Mr. Fly worked in various positions and by constant 
application built his success from the ground up. Upon the 
death of his father, the directors elected J. M. Fly president 
of the Fly & Hobson Company. He also became president 
and general manager of the Mr. Bowers Stores, Inc., of which 
there are forty-four. Mr. Fly's business specialties are organi- 
zation, advertising and co-operation from associates by inspir- 
ing them with a vision of service and a sense of responsibility 
to the public. He and Miss Frederika Brode were married 
in 1903. Thev have two children, D. Wilson and Marie Louise. 




H. S. GRIFFIN 

Horace Sidney Griffin, Arlington, Tennessee, one of the 
largest land owners in West Tennessee and most substantial 
citizens of Shelby County, was born near what now is Arling- 
ton, August 10. 1855, the oldest son of James Henry and 
Zylphia (Thomas) Griffin. When he was but nineteen years 
of age, his father died, leaving him in charge of the five hun- 
dred-acre plantation. The younger brothers all migrated to 
Texas and continually begged him to join them, but he had 
faith in this country, which he has shown by a constant 
increase in his real estate holdings. He has expanded his 
home place from within half a mile of Arlington into Fayette 
County comprising some twenty-two hundred acres. He has 
a six hundred and twenty-five-acre plantation west of Arling- 
ton and a five hundred-acre place in Fayette County, in addi- 
tion to nearly seven hundred acres in Attala County, Missis- 
sippi. He has been married twice: first to Miss Anna Thomas, 
their child being Zylphia Elizabeth; and later to Mrs. T essie 
M. Griffin, their children being Horace S., Junior; Margaret; 
Beth; Albert N., and Thomas William. In his religious 
views he is a Presbyterian and is an elder in that church. 



8S2 




HARRY II. LITTY 

Harry H. Litty, capitalist and sportsman, former railroad 
engineer, lawyer and mayoi oi Memphis, Tennessee, always 

a most companionable man and truest of friends, was born at 
midnighl of March (6-17, 1862, in Toledo, Ohio, df Swiss and 
French parentage. He attended high school and college but 
left school at eighteen years of age and engaged in railroad 
work as a locomotive engineer on the Louisville-St, Louis Air 

Line, Louisville & Nashville and Kansas < ity. Memphis & 
Birmingham railroads, during a part of that time being with 
Rogers & Ballentine Company in building railroads through- 
out the South, including the line from Memphis to Birming- 
ham, lie came to Memphis in 1886, dealt in real estate suc- 
cessfully, studied law under Colonel <i. A. C. Holt and 
practiced from 1890 to the present time. He was Cleveland's 
internal revenue collector, member of City Hoard of Public 
Works from 1896 to 1900 and mayor 1917 and 1918. During 
his mayoralty his efforts wen especiallj dine lid towaru 
winning the war and reducing public expenditures His diver- 
sions are fishing, shooting and hunting big game. He and 
Mis-, Elizabeth Clark were man nil November 25, 1897. Their 
children are Marion and Adcle 




R. P. LAKE 

Colonel Richard Pinkney Lake, life underwriter and 
financier, Memphis. Tennessee, son of William Lake, wealthy 
merchant of (Grenada, Mississippi, was born there January 10. 
1848, where his parents had moved from the eastern shore ol 
Maryland. His ancestors, himself and bis sons, three of 
whom were commissioned in the World War, have answered 
every call of their country to arms, including the Revolution. 
Colonel bake was an officer in a company of boys at the out- 
break of the Civil War. and saw active service in 1Xi>4 and 
1865 as a lieutenant of cavalry, probabl} the youngest commis- 
sioned Confederate officer. He was chairman of bis county 
Democratic committee during reconstruction, but. that accom- 
plished, he withdrew from politics. For several years he was 
vice-president of the Mississippi & Tennessee Railroad, and 
for a long time has been assistant adjutant general on the 
staff of the commander-in-chief. U. C. V. In L88S Colonel 
Lake was appointed general agent for the Equitable Life 
Assurance Society, and adding Tennessee to bis Mississippi 
jurisdiction, moved to Memphis in 1894, where he has been a 
leading figure in business and social circles ever since. He 
and Miss Stella McKnight Hoffa married in January. 1878. 



883 




K. L. .MATTHEWS 

Robert Lf.kiiv Matthews, Memphis, Tennessee, founder 
and active head of the real estate, mortgage loan and insur- 
ance firm of R. L. Matthews & Company, was born in Mem- 
phis, the son of Robert George and Virginia Leedy Matthews. 
All of his grandparents were Virginians, who later moved to 
Alabama and Mississippi. His father was a captain in Mor- 
gan's Brigade during the Civil War until he was wounded. 
Mrs, Matthews as Miss Leedy was a belle in North Alabama 
society, and during her entire life was a woman of rare 
culture, refinement and influence for good throughout the 
wide circle in which she moved. As a tribute to her memory 
Mr. Matthews has donated a great memorial organ to St. 
John's M. E. Church. Much of Mr. Matthews' ear- 
lier life was spent in Aberdeen and Okolona. Mississippi, 
where he received his early education. He later took the 
course in Eastman's Business College at Poughkeepsie, New 
York. Returning to Memphis, he became teller for the Man- 
hattan Savings Bank & Trust Company. From 1894 to 1898 
he was a member of the firm of Farnsworth & Matthews, pri- 
vate bankers. Then he spent two years in the East and in 
1900 returned to Memphis where he founded his present firm, 
a leader in its line in the Mid-South. 




CAPTAIN H. C. MOORMAN 

Captain- Hiram Clark Moorman, lawyer and banker. 
Somerville, Tennessee, for many years leader of all that was 
good in morals, ethics, religion and politics in Fayette County, 
was born in Hardeman County, Tennessee. January 31, 1842. 
the son of Dr. Robert Alexander and Martha Ann (Morgan) 
Moorman. After having attended the common schools and 
received his degree of bachelor of arts from Bethel College, 
McLemoresville. Tennessee, he was a law student at Cumber- 
land University, Lebanon, Tennessee, when the Civil War broke 
out. He enlisted as a private in the Thirteenth Tennessee 
Infantry in May. 1861 ; fought in all the campaigns from Bel- 
mont to Bentonville ; was thrice promoted for bravery on the 
field of battle ; suffered three wounds, the most serious at 
Lovejoy's Station in the Dalton-to-Atlanta campaign ; taught 
school at Salem, Mississippi, and read law until the winter of 
1869-70, when he began a career in Somerville, which has 
been both successful to himself and useful to the entire com- 
munity. He has been president of the Fayette County Bank 
since 1890, and owns a beautiful farm and country home just 
west of Somerville. His record as a lawyer has been one of 
distinction and success. He was married first to Miss Frances 
J. Armstrong and later to Miss Ora B. Green. 



8S4 




A. G. PERKINS 

Albert Greene Perkins, Memphis, Tennessee, for many 
years executive head of the Tennessee Cottonseed Crushers 
Association, was born in Kaufman County, Texas, October 17. 
1871, the son of Alfred Henry Dashiell and Elizabeth I rami I 
Perkins, The family moved to Memphis in 1877, and Mr. Per- 
kins grew up and was educated here until he was fourteen 
years of aye, when he went to work as an office boy, later 

becoming clerk, stenographer, I kkeeper and secretary, in 

1896, of the Mississippi Vallej Cotton Compart} He resigned 
that position in IN 1 )') to become secretary and treasurer oi the 
Perkins Oil Company, whore he remained for two years, and 
for the next four years he was ecretarj and treasurer of the 
Vallej Crushers Association. Since I 1 '!!.' he has been secretary 
and treasurer of the Tennessee Cottonseed i rushers Associa- 
tion, except from November 10, ]<>07, to December I. 1908 
during which period he represented the United States Ivnan- 
ment of Commerce and Labor in northern Europe developing 
markets for cottonseed products. He and Miss Mary Agnes 
Milt lull were married July 9, 1900. Their children arc: 
Billy Moore; Albert (,. Jr.; Agnes M . and Nicholas T. 
Perkins. 




H. J. PARRISH 

Henry James Parrish. general manager of the Gayoso I ril 
Works, was born in 1859. close to the Tennessee-Mississippi 
State line, a few miles south of Collierville. where his father, 
Henry Parrish. was a wealthy slave-owner and planter. His 
mother was formerly Miss Sallie Marshall. Mr. Parrish quit 

>cl 1 at the age of seventeen years and came to Memphis. 

where he went to work for Hill, Fontaine & Cdmpanj \t 
the end of five years there he became connected with the 
Gayoso oil Works, rising rapidly to the position of general 
manager of the concern, which position he has occupied ever 
since. For years he has been recognized as one of the leading 
cotton oil manufacturers in the cotton belt, and as an apprecia- 
tion of his ability in that line and his high character in the 
business world, he was elected president of the Interstate Cot- 
tonseed Crushers Association. He also served for a term as 
president of the Memphis Merchants Exchange, and was one 
oi the sj x men selected to build the ExchSnge Building He 
is a member of the Blue Lodge, a Knight Templar and a 
Shriner. Mr. Parrish and Miss Vlice M Mitchell were mar- 
ried November 15. 1882, They have one child. Mis. .\. k. 
Hudson. 



885 




CAPTAIN C. H. VANCE 

Captain Calvin Brooks Vance, Batesville, Mississippi, for 
forty years one of the leading and most useful men in Panola 
County, was born in that county December 26, 1842. the son 
of Elisha Quinby and Cypress C. Vance. His father was an 
antebellum slave-holder and cotton planter. Captain Vance 
was educated at the Kentucky Military Institute and was at 
the University of Virginia when the Civil War began. He 
gave four years of his time to the Confederacy and his blood 
from two wounds, being promoted to the captaincy of a com- 
pany of artillery. Returning to Batesville after the surrender, 
he was one of the leaders of the clansmen in restoring white 
supremacy in the South. He was one of the organizers of the 
Bank of Batesville in 1900. and has been its president since its 
doors first opened. He also has been at the head of other 
industries there. Captain Vance is a large holder of farming 
lands in the hills of Panola County, and has owned valuable 
lands in the Delta. He commanded the Mississippi Division, 
U. C. V„ for three terms and now commands the Army of 
Tennessee Department. His wife, formerly Miss Lida B. But- 
ler, died in 1917, leaving three sons: Earl Q., C. B., Jr.. and 
John D. 




J. S. ALLEN 

James Sedlon Allen, lawyer, Memphis, Tennessee, was 
born August 31, 1885, in Stamford, Connecticut, but he is a 
member of one of the oldest, most cultured and highly 
respected families in Memphis. He received his early educa- 
tion in the public schools of Memphis and also attended school 
in Chicago. He was graduated from the University of Ten- 
nessee with the degree of bachelor of laws in 1907, and 
returned at once to Memphis, where he began the practice of 
his profession. He made rapid progress in the law from the 
time that he began, and in 1916 the Honorable Kenneth D. 
McKellar, now United States senator, Mr. William D. Kyser, 
now United States district attorney, and he formed the firm 
of McKellar, Kyser & Allen, since that time one of the strong- 
est law firms in the Mid-South. Mr. Allen is a member of the 
Memphis Rotary Club, of the Lawyers Club, of the Chamber 
of Commerce, of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon college fraternity 
and of the Memphis Country Club. He and Miss Sarah Per- 
kins were married January 30, 1919. They have one child, 
James Seddon Allen, Jr. Mr. Allen has never sought or held 
any political office, but is ever active in all movements for the 
improvement of Memphis. 



886 




B. H. MILLER 

Benjamin Robinson Miller, Bartlett, Tennessee, was born at 
Gainesville, Alabama, Marcli 22", 186S, the son of William ( li g 
gett and Marie- Louise (Robinson) Miller. Mr. Miller grew 
into manhood in and arpund New Orleans, Louisiana, 
where his first position as a bread winner was with the I). II. 
Holmes Dry Goods Company, where at the age of twelve, he 
was employed as a cash boy. He came to the Memphis district 
about the year 1890, locating at Crawjordsville, Arkansas, 
where he was associated with A. R. Strong in the mercantile 
business. In 1893 he married Miss Willie B. lllarkwcll. daugh- 
ter of Dr. X. Blackwell of Bartlett, Tennessee, soon after- 
wards making Bartlett his home, where he has been engaged 
in agricultural pursuits, raising for market besides cotton, 
livestock, grain, hay. small fruits and vegetables. About the 
year 1911 he entered politics, serving his town as member of 
the County Court. It was during hi- tenure and largel) 
through his efforts while a member of the khiii that Bartlett 
succeeded in getting the ban. Nome new high school building. 
In 1919 he was active in organizing the Bartlett Savings Bank 
& Trust Company of which he is president. 




A. R. APPLING 

Alvin Robertson Appling, Bartlett, Tennessee, one of the 
leading farmers and merchants in Shelby County, was born 
in Byhalia, Mississippi. November 17. 1886, the son of Dr. Alvin 
Robertson and Ida (Warren) Appling. He quit school at 
fourteen years of age and farmed with hi- lather until 1902 
at Ellendale, Tennessee, to which place the family had moved 
Then he worked in the store of D. A. Appling & Sons. 
becoming a member of the firm. The business has grown 
with such rapidity that now he operates grocer} -tore- at 
Bartlett. Ellendale and Cordova; cotton gins at Bartlett and 
Brunswick, and a saw mill at Cordova. However, Mr Appling 
devotes most of his time to a two-thousand-acre plantation. 
where fancy Duroc-Jersey hogs and Jersey cattle are bred in 
addition to the raising of cotton, corn and hay crops. He wa- 
one of the organizers of and is a director in the Bartlett 
Savings Bank & Trust Company. He is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity, the Woodmen of the World and the 
Chamber of Commerce of Memphis, Mr. Appling volun- 
teered for service in the army during the World War, and 
remained in camp from June to December. 1918, when he was 
discharged as a sergeant. 



887 




J. M. DEAN 

John Morton Dean, realtor, Memphis, Tennessee, was born 
in DeSoto County, Mississippi, the son of James R. and 
Parilee Amelia Dean. He attended the public schools of his 
native State and went to work in a country store at the age 
of thirteen years. He remained in the mercantile business for 
seventeen years, most of the time in Tennessee, and in 190Z 
entered the real estate business in Memphis. He is the senior 
member of the firm of Dean & Tindall. real estate and general 
insurance. He is president of the Memphis Real Estate Asso- 
ciation, having been elected three consecutive terms of two 
years each without opposition; is a member of the advisory- 
committee of the National Board of Review of Motion Pic- 
tures; a director in the Chamber of Commerce; chairman of 
the City Agricultural Committee; president of the Cotton 
Buckle & Tag Company; former vice-president of the 
National Association of Real Estate Boards, and is the 
Committee on Publication for the Christian Science churches 
of Tennessee. He is also chairman of the Memphis Board 
of Theatrical Censors, and has always administered the office 
with rare good taste and firmness. Mr. Dean and Miss 
Jerusha Clark were married in 1896. 




DOCTOR M. GOLTMAN 

Max GoltMan, surgeon. Memphis, Tennessee, is a native of 
Glasgow. Scotland, where he was born May 24, 1867. the son 
of Solomon and Cecilia (Tobias) Goltman. After having 
taken the courses in the Glasgow public schools, he came to 
America, where he took his medical course at McGill Univer- 
sity in Montreal, Canada, going to London. Edinburgh and 
Glasgow to study by working his way on cattle ships during 
vacations. He also did hospital work in Montreal. He began 
practice in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, where he remained until 
1895, when he came to Memphis where he enjoys a splendid 
practice. He is professor of surgery in the Medical College of 
the University of Tennessee, chief surgeon at the Memphis 
General and Baptist Memorial Hospitals, and from 1910 to 
1914 was superintendent of the Health Department of the 
City of Memphis, where he was of great value to the com- 
munity. He and Miss Mollie Sternberg were married Decem- 
ber 12, 1894. Their children are: Alfred M., a senior medical 
student at Columbia University, New York; Louise, a junior 
at Smith College; Jack Sternberg, a junior at the University 
of Pennsylvania ; David William, and Maxine Cecelia 
Goltman. 



888 




E. F. GEERS 

Edward Franklin Geeks, Memphis. Tennessee, premier 
reinsman of the world, was horn in Wilson County, Tenn< 
near Lebanon, January 25. 1851, the son of William Gideon 
and Emily (Woolard) Geers. As a mere youth he displayed 
unusual skill in driving horses and when hut twenty years of 
age had several in his stable. Mr. Geers has been on the 
Grand Circuit for forty years, has entered about 4.0(10 races 
and has piloted to victory a score of champions, notable among 
them being Robert J., Hal Pointer, The Harvester, Vnvil, 
Xapoleon Direct and St. Frisco. Mr. Geers has established a 
most enviable record as a Successful trainer and driver, and 
has gained a nation-wide reputation for honesty and integrity, 
holding the highest respect and affection of the American 
people. Me is now sixty-eight years old, maintains his youth- 
ful vigor and trains and races his horses with the skill dis- 
played thirty years ago. For many years Mr. Geers had 
charge of the Village Farm racing stables owned by C. J. 
Hamlin of East Aurora, New York. Since Mr. Geers has 
operated his own stables at Memphis and has had chargi ol 
many horses owned by Mr. F. (,. Jones. 




J. II. IRBY 

Joseph Hobbs [rby, banker, Colliervitle, Tennessee, was born 
in that city December 1, 1861, the son of Harrison and Marina 
(Moore) Irby. He attended the public schools at home and 
then took two terms in the University of Mississippi at 
Oxford. On December 7, 1887. he organized a drug business 
in Collierville with his brother. Dr. Harrison Irby. under the 
firm name of Irby Brothers, which they conducted with 
marked success until December. 1916. During the fall oi 
tin loll. .wing season Mr. Irby became heavily interested in 
the First State Bank & Trust Company of Collierville and 
on September 25, 1917. be was elected president of that insti- 
tution, which position he still holds. While Mr. Irby has 
never sought office, he has for many years been one ..! the 
most active men in the count} Eoi thi i ause of g 1 govern- 
ment and for nearly twenty years served as an alderman of 
the city. Recently he declined a unanimous nomination for 
mayor. He is a master Mason, a devout member of the 
Methodist Church in the Sunday school of which be teaches 
the Bible class, and no man in the county stands higher than 
he for integrity. He and Miss Frances Sale were married 
lanuarv -4. 1899. They have no child. 



889 




WM. D. KYSER 

William D. Kyser, attorney-at-law, Memphis, Tennessee, 
is a native of Richmond. Alabama, being the son of George 
W. and Sallie P. Kyser. He was born July 17. 1882. Having 
received the degree of bachelor of arts at the University of 
Alabama, he came to Tennessee to take his law course, receiv- 
ing the degree of bachelor of laws from Cumberland Uni- 
versity at Lebanon. In 1906 he came to Memphis and went 
into the law office of Carroll & McKellar. composed of the 
late Colonel William H. Carroll and the present Senator 
Kenneth D. McKellar. Upon the dissolution of that firm in 
1909 he and Mr. McKellar formed the firm of McKellar & 
Kyser. and in 1917 the name was changed to McKellar. Kyser 
& Allen, which it is today. When the Honorable Hubert F. 
Fisher became United States attorney for the Western District 
of Tennessee, Mr. Kyser was named as his assistant, and 
when Mr. Fisher went to the Congress in 1917, first the Court 
and later the President named Mr. Kyser as his successor. 
Mr. Kyser is a member of the Chamber of Commerce. Ten- 
nessee Club. Memphis Country Club. Lawyers Club and 
Rotary Club. He and Miss Tempe Darrow Swoope were 
married June 9. 1917. Thev have one son, William D., Jr. 




J. Y. PEETE 

John Young PeetE, son of Edwin Robert and Jane Eleanor 
(Taylor) Peete, was born in Tipton County, Tennessee. He 
attended the Kentucky Military Institute. As a farmer and 
stock-raiser he was one of the most successful men in Tipton 
County. He served as magistrate for twenty-one years, one 
term as chairman of County Court. In 1908 he was elected 
county trustee and moved to Covington. In 1918 he was 
elected judge of the County Court. He is a Methodist, a 
Mason, an Odd Fellow and member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon 
fraternity. He was married November 24. 1875. to Miss 
Roberta Park Somervell," a charming member of that family 
wdiich traces through an honorable line back in Scotland and 
England to the year 1060. His grandfather was a member of 
the Virginia Legislature from 1820 to 1825; a great-uncle, 
Thomas Peete, of the same body from 1800 to 1805. and a 
great-great-uncle. Colonel Robert Bignall, was on General 
Caswell's stafif in the Colonial army. After the death of his 
wife. Judge Peete married Mrs. Francis Lee Taylor. In every 
position of public trust he has served his people with the 
highest credit to himself and fidelity to them. 



890 




THOMAS C. ASHCROFT 

Thomas Calvin Ashcroft, president of the American 
Building, Loan and Tontine Savings Association, former 
mayor oi Memphis, Tennessee, and financier, was born in 
Verona, Mississippi, in 1866, the son of Thomas Calvin and 
Laura (Noe) Ashcroft The senior Thomas C, Ashcroft, as 
the captain of a gallant Mississippi regiment under Forrest, 
led tin' last charge of the forlorn hope at Selma, Alabama. 
The present Mr. Ashcroft, as a lad of fifteen, wenj to work 
For the Mobile & Ohio Railroad as a telegraph operator and 
seven years later joined the forces of the Western Union 
Telegraph Company in the same capacity. At twenty-four 
years of aye he became connected with the Associated Press 

as a reporter and news editor and for twenty-five years was 

with that organization, during the latter pan of that time 
being in charge of its Memphis office. Since resigning his 
connection with the Associated Press, Mr. Uluioit has been 
connected with a number of the large financial institution- of 
the city in addition to the one which he heads, lie was a 
member of the State Senate during the 1916-'17 term, and 
resigned to become mayor in 1916, serving into 1917. Mr. 
Vshcroft and Miss Ida Cicalla were married in 1906. 




NELSON I). WEST 

Nelson Davis West, hotel proprietor. Clarksdale, Missis- 
sippi, was born in Des Moines. Iowa. September 21, 187S, the 
son oi George Adelbert and Nancy (Davis) West. Alter two 
years in architecture and bookkeeping, he went into the hotel 
business in Chicago in 1896. Ten years later he moved to 
Mississippi and opened a hotel in Greenwood. Seeing that 
Greenwood had superior facilities , n that line to Clarksdale. in 
1907 he moved to the latter city and leased the Alcazar, then 
having onlj forty rooms. The venture was such a success 
from the start that the building soon was unable to accommo- 
date the patronage. In 1915 Messrs. Kmy & Anderson built 
the present hotel of the same name. Mr. West continued to 
manage it arid from the moment that the new building was 
opened its business continued to grow, until now it is doing 
a business in t -\cess of $200,000 per year. It is a beautiful 
structure and so managed by Mr. West that it is recognized 
as one of the best in the South. He is a member of tin Mis- 
sissippi Hotel Keepers' Association, the Chamber of Com- 
merce and the Southern Hotel Keepers' Association. He and 
Miss Gertrude Isabel Slaughter married February 14, 1899. 



891 




OLIVER M. ELLIS 

Oliver Malone Elus, of Clarksdale. Mississippi, one of the 
most successful planters of Coahoma County, was born near 
Huntsville, Alabama. November 2, 1855. the son of J. B. and 
Nancy Ellis. The war having ruined his father's estate. Mr. 
Ellis got but little education. In 1878 he went to the Delta, 
managing for John Clark for a year, spent the next year in 
Alabama on account of sickness, returned to the Delta in 1880 
and clerked in Shufbrdsville for a year and then took charge 
of the Hancock place near Clarksdale. After ten successful 
years there he married Miss Mary Johnson. February 8. 1888. 
and took over the place of Mrs. Porter, his wife's aunt, and 
mortgaged it for about all it was worth. This he not onh 
paid off. but since then has bought the adjoining Mitchell and 
Xorfleet places and put all three of them on a paying basis. 
He is a member of tl*e Elks lodge and the family are mem- 
bers of the Methodist Church, to which, as well as to all other 
good causes, he is a liberal contributor. He has never taken 
any part in politics, except to serve as supervisor for four 
years. They have four children: Misses Jessie Belle and 
Genevieve; Currie and Charles Ellis. 




J. SAM HAM 

James Samuel Ham of Clarksdale, Mississippi, has been 
one of the best known, one of the most useful and one of the 
best loved men in Coahoma County for forty-five years. He 
enjoys the companionship of his fellow man and they enjoy 
his combination of humor rather than wit, good nature, sound 
sense and sociability. Mr. Ham was born in Elbert County, 
Georgia, January 1, 1850, the son of Samuel and Carolina 
Elizabeth Ham. He attended school from five to eight years 
of age, and then was compelled to go to work on the farm. 
In 1875 he moved to Coahoma County and has lived there ever 
since. He has prospered greatly and owns a beautiful planta- 
tion, where he raises cotton and fine stock. He is an Elk and 
served as county supervisor from 1882 to 189$. and as a mem- 
ber of the State Legislature from 1900 to 1904. He was a 
candidate for the Congress in 1906 against the Honorable Ben 
G. Humphreys. He received a good majority in bis home 
county, but was defeated for the nomination. He announced 
his intention to run again, but later withdrew his candidacy 
because, he says, Mr. Humphreys waked up to the importance 
of the Mississippi levee situation. 



892 




.1. A. IS ELK 

Joseph Anton I sin has spent thirty-three active and su< 
cessful years in the hotel business, mainly in Memphis, Ten- 
nessee. The ->>n of Vincent [sele, he was horn January 14. 
1867, in Buesslingen, Baden, Germany, and educated in the 
high schools of Schaffhausen, Switzerland, and the Ballard 
private school in Memphis, where he came in 18X5. In 1XS7 
he was connected with the Ramona Hotel, Cascade. Colorado, 
and in 1890 and 1891 with Luehrmann's in Memphis. He and 
his brother, as [sele Brothers, were proprietors of the i laren 
don Hotel here with signal success from 1891 to 1899. During 
1906 they operated the Peabody Hotel, and from the Following 
year until 1913 they operated the Cordova Hotel with the 

same success that they enjoyed at the Clarendon. In the 
meanwhile Mr. [sele branched out and operated the Robidoux 
at St. Joseph, Missouri, for four years following 1908. Re- 
turning to Memphis, he and his brother have made a SUCCi 
of the Arlington Hotel, and now hold a contrail for the 
operation of the million and a half dollar Tri-State Hotel to 
succeed that building.. Mr. [sele and Miss Amalia littler were 
married in 189S and have two children, a son and a daughtei 




A. A. HALLE 

A. Arthur Halle, one of the youngesl and \<t one of the 
leading merchants of Memphis, Tennessee, was born in this 
city December 14, 1889, the son of Phil A. and Eva (Gabay) 
Halle. He attended the city schools, the Memphis University 
School, Betts Academy at Stamford, Connecticut, and Yale 
University, returning to Memphis in 1909 and becoming asso- 
ciated with bis father in the clothing business, which he has 
extended to all wearing apparel. He coached the football team 
of the Memphis branches of the University of ["ennessee for 
three years. Upon the death of his father. December 2'K 
1918, Mr. Halle assumed active charge of the business and has 
not only enlarged its quarters in the Exchange Building, but 
made it one of the most active businesses in its line in lb 
Mid-South. Mis capacity as a merchant was recognized b'j 
his fellows throughout the State by their electing him in 1920 

as president of the Tennessee Retail Clothiers Association 
He is a member of the Vale. Rex, Kiwanis, City and Ridge- 
waj Country clubs. Mr. Halle and Miss Dorothy Sternberg 
were married June 30, 1915. They have one child. A. Arthur 
1 lallc, Junior, 



893 




H. M. LOVE 

Hugh Marshall Love. Yazoo City, Mississippi, was born 
June 19, 1870,' in Yazoo County, the son of Dewitt Clinton 
and Kate (Alexander) Love, his father being a planter and 
having been sheriff of the county. After having attended the 
public schools in Yazoo City. Mr. Love went to the South- 
western Presbyterian University at Clarksdale, Tennessee, in 
1HS7. '88 and '89, where he was a member of the Kappa Sigma 
fraternity. He entered the Bank of Yazoo City on Septem- 
ber 1. 1889, as messenger, and by merit had passed through 
the stages of bookkeeper and assistant cashier by 1904, when 
he was elected president, which position he still holds. Dur- 
ing the war Mr. Love was a member of the county Liberty 
loan committee and was very active in all of the drives in his 
county for patriotic purposes. He has never sought office, but 
for three years has been a member of the school board. He 
is also a member of the Elks. Mr. Love was married October 
9. 1907, to Miss Janie Andrus. The union has been blessed by 
two children, Hugh Marshall Love, Junior, and Louise Andrus 
Love. 




S. STEINBERG 

Samuel Steinberg, merchant, capitalist and banker, Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, is a native of Poland, where he was born in 
1879. He received his early education there and came to the 
United States in 1896. Moving to Clarksville. Tennessee, he 
entered the mercantile business and prospered so that in 1905 
he sought the wider field at Memphis. His firm of S. Stein- 
berg & Company has taken an active part in restoring Mem- 
phis to its old position as a hide and fur market. The firm 
also owns the Memphis Sanitary Reduction Company. Mr. 
Steinberg's industry and foresight have borne fruit very rap- 
idly in Memphis, and his judgment in outside investments has 
been commensurate with them. Now he is vice-president of 
the National City Bank; president of the Park Holding Com- 
pany; president of the Lyceum Holding Company, and a 
director in the Memphis Packing Corporation, in which he is 
a heavy stockholder. He is a member of the Rex Club, tht 
Elks and the Chamber of Commerce, in all of which, as well 
as in all movements for the improvement of Memphis, he 
takes an active part. He and Miss Sarah Weinberg of Clarks- 
ville were married in 1902. They have three children: Fannie, 
Josephine and Sylvia. 



894 




M. G. BAILEY 

Mortimer Grimball Bailey, banker, Memphis, Tennessee, 
is a nam,' oi South ( arolina, having been born at Rantowles 
March 12, 1871, the son oi Hamilton Mortimer and Julia 
(Westcoat) Bailey. He received his education in the public 
schools of Charleston County, South Carolina. He was a ;o 
dated with John T. Walsh and Anthony Walsh in the forma- 
tion of the North Memphis Savings Bank & Trust Company 
and its first cashier. His ability as a hanker and uniform 
courtesy contributed largely to the wonderful success of thai 
institution from the day that its doors opened for the first 
time. Alter having remained there for a number of years. 
• Nlr Bailej an, I a number of ass,,eiates formed the Liberty 
Savings Bank X Trust Company. He was elected the first 

president and lias remained in that position ever since. The 
rapid growth of that institution reflects Mr Bailey's capacin 
a, a financier and the appreciation by the public of his ,, 
ling honesty and habitual courtesy. Mr. Bailey and Mi" 
Blanche Tuggle were married December 25, 1894. They have 
two children, both daughters, Miss Blanche, a Vassar student. 
now Mrs. J. C. Wilde of New Vork I ity, and Miss Helen, at 
Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. 




L. P. COOK. 

Lucius Pinckney Cook, president of the Merchants 
Exchange, Memphis, Tennessee, was born in Paulding, ras- 

per Comity. Mississippi. May 19, 1874. the son of Joseph and 
Mary (Clayton) Cook. He completed the curse at the 
Paulding High School at the age of nineteen years, farmed 
for four years, clerked and kept hooks at Ellisville, Mississippi, 
for two years, was a bookkeeper in Jackson. Mississippi, foi 
two years, and. in 19(12, came to Memphis as stockholder in 
and manager for the wholesale gram firm oi I'atton-Hattield 
Company. He managed that concern successfully for eight 
years and at the end of that time formed the linn of I. |' 
Cook & Company, he being the sole owner, and operating in 
the same line. From that time on he has been recognized as 
one of the leading grain men in the Mid-South and having 
started with a capital of only $20,000. he has developed tin 
husiness to where it is ten times as large as in the beginning. 
For the last ten years he has been president of the Union 
■ '.levator Company. In 1919 he was elected president of tin- 
Merchants Exchange. Mr. Cook and Miss M alA Bookei 
were married August 1(1, 1911. They have one child. Lucius 
Pinckney, Junior. 



895 




H. C. YERKES 

Harry Clifford Yerkes, vice-president of Goodbar & Com- 
pany, Memphis, Tennessee, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, 
October 3, 1859, the son of Reuben Skinner and Harriet 
(Martin) Yerkes, members of old families of Danville, Ken- 
tucky. He was educated in Louisville. Kentucky, and attended 
business college in Little Rock. His first work was on the 
Arkansas Gazette which his father owned. In February, 
1876, he came to Memphis and. with the exception of a few 
years spent in St. Louis and Chicago learning the manufacture 
of shoes, he has lived here continuously, being connected with 
Goodbar & Company. For many years the late Mr. J. M. 
Goodbar expressed his faith in Mr. Yerkes' judgment and 
abilities by placing upon him, among other responsibilities, 
those of buyer and sales manager for his firm. Mr. Yerkes 
is a deacon in the Second Presbyterian Church and a member 
of the Chamber of Commerce. In 1891 he was married to 
Miss Louisa Ann Adams of Little Rock, to whom were born 
two sons, Laurence Adams and Clark Clifford Yerkes. By his 
sterling business qualities and devotion to duty. Mr. Yerkes 
has won the respect and admiration of his friends and 
associates. 




DR. LOUIS LEROY 

Doctor Louis Leroy, Memphis, Tennessee, one of the lead- 
ing physicians of the Mid-South, was born in Chelsea. Massa- 
chusetts, September IS, 1874, the son of Charles L. A. and 
Lizzie F. (Somerby) Leroy. He was educated in the high 
school at Newark, New Jersey, spent three years in the medi- 
cal department of the University of New York and then grad- 
uated from the Medico-Chirurgical College (now University 
of Pennsylvania) in Philadelphia. He practiced medicine in 
Nashville. Tennessee, from 1896 to 1906, in the meanwhile 
securing the degree of bachelor of science from the Univer- 
sity of Nashville in 1900. He studied in the hospitals and 
laboratories of Paris in 1900 and has done post-graduate work 
in various other cities. He was city bacteriologist in Nash- 
ville in 1898, and from 1898 to 1906 was bacteriologist for the 
Nashville City Hospital and also for the State of Tennessee. 
He served as vice-president and then as president of the 
State Board of Health. He has been on the staff of the Mem- 
phis General Hospital since he moved here in 1906. He is a 
fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member 
of the American and minor medical associations. 



896 




J. K. SWOOPE 

Jacob K. Swoope, mayor of Collierville, Tennessee, was born 
August 31, 1869, in Lawrence County, Alabama, the son of 
Charles Carroll and Frances (Hutchins) Swoope. lie was 

educated in the public school-, of his home comity; the Ala- 
bama Normal School at Florence in 1883^84; University of the 
South, Sewanee, Tennessee, 188S, and Smirk's C ommerc ' a ' 
i ollege, Lexington, Kentucky, 1886. He farmed for a while 
near Courtland, Alabama; ran a store at Wheeler, Alabama, 
and later was in the mercantile business in Courtland until 
1916, when he moved to Collierville. farmed in 1916. In 
I'M 1 ' he bought three hundred and twenty acres of land m 
Marshall County, Mississippi, became president of the Collier- 
ville Lumber Company; vice-presidenl of the hirst State Bank 
X- Trust Company, and acquired lour business houses in the 
city, opening a drug store in I'll/, which he now conducts, 
being elected mayor of the city in 1919 without opposition. 
I te was active in redeeming the last county in Alabama from 
the Republicans and was president of its Jury Commission 
until he left Alabama in 1915. He and Miss Lucille Marie 
Saffrans of Honey Grove, Texas, were married August 12. 
1902. They have no child. 




W. T. WIXSTOX 

William T. Winston, banker, Cleveland, Mississippi, is a 
native of Illinois, having been horn November 1, 1875, at Sid- 
ney, the son of Miller and Mary Winston. He attended the 
grammar and high schools at home, then worked for a bank for 
four years and used his savings with which to take a four- 
Near course at Northwestern University, Evans ton, Illinois. 
Upon receiving his diploma in 1900 he moved to Cleveland, 
where be began his real career as cashier of the Cotton 
Exchange Hank. He served in that capacity for twelve years 
with such signal ability and fidelity to the trust imposed upon 
him. that in 1912 he was elected president of the bank, which 
position he still holds, ami in which position he has not onl\ 
built up a great financial institution, hut also been a strong 
factor in the growth of the entire community, lie is a director 
in the Farmers Hank of Boyle, and in the Valley Wholesale 
Grocery Company, and a stockholder in the Bank of Men- 
gold. He is a member of the Methodist I hiirch and the 
Bogue Phalia Outing Club, and treasurer of the city of 
Cleveland. He and Miss Alma Wells were married August 
19, 1908. They have two children. William Winston and 
Eloisc Winston. 



897 




C. R. SHANNON 

Charles Raymond Shannon, public accountant and mem- 
ber of the City Commission of Memphis, Tennessee, in charge 
of finance, accounts and revenues, is a native of Kentucky, but 
has been in Memphis since he was a mere lad. He was born 
in Paducah, September 15, 1875, the son of Henry B. and 
Anna (Burns) Shannon. He was educated in St. Patrick's 
parochial school, and later in Christian Brothers College and 
the Hope Xight School. At the age of seventeen years he 
entered railroad work and spent twelve years in the freight 
offices of various local lines. His next three years were spent 
with the Galloway Coal Company and Patterson Transfer 
Company. In 1907 he began business for himself as a public 
accountant in which he has been a conspicuous success ever 
since, being the senior member of the firm of Shannon, Rey- 
nolds & Bone. In 1919 the large committee of business men 
which brought out a city ticket free from partisan politics 
prevailed upon him to accept its nomination. He was elected 
by a tremendous majority and began his four-year term 
January 1, 1920. He is a member of the Colonial Country 
Club, the Knights of Columbus, Chamber of Commerce, Lions 
and City clubs. 




W. H. HOUSTON 

William H. Houston, mayor of Tunica, Mississippi, mer- 
chant, planter and cotton factor in Tunica County and also a 
leading cotton factor in Memphis, Tennessee, was born in 
Holmes County, Mississippi. September 7. 1878, the son of 
John Scott and Sallie (Hoover) Houston. As a youth he 
graduated from the high school in Memphis and then went 
to Evansville, Mississippi, where he kept books. Thence he 
moved to Tunica, where he served for three years as deputy 
clerk to the chancery and circuit courts. Returning to Mem- 
phis he worked for the cotton factoring firm of A. R. Strong 
& Company and then again moved to Tunica, where he organ- 
ized the Tunica Cotton Company, of which he is president and 
which does a large business both there and in Memphis, 
between which cities he divides his time. He was first elected 
mayor of Tunica in 1918 and his term will expire in 1921. In 
1910 he was appointed a member of the Upper Yazoo Levee 
Board, and for nine years he served on the school board. 
He owns stock in several Memphis banks and the Citizens 
Bank of Tunica. He and Miss Alice Harris, daughter of 
the founder of Tunica, married July 31. 1901. Their only 
child is W. H., Jr. 



898 




J. Q. EATON 

John (}vt\t\ Eaton, planter and real estate man. Memphis, 
Tennessee, was horn in Washington, District of Columbia, 
July 14. 1873, during the time thai his father, General John 
Eaton was United States Commissioner of Education, to 
which position he had been appointed after having served in 
1870 as t ommissioner of Education in Tennessee, in which 
position he laid the foundation foi thi present Stati school 
laws. Mi. Eaton was educated in the public schools of the 
national capital. Marietta (Ohio) Vcademy and ( ollege while 

his lather was president of the latter, and Dartmouth. New 

Hampshire, in 1893, having the degree of A. B, before his 
twentieth birthday, and finished in 189S with the degrei ol 
master oi laws from the George Washington University. IK 
spent four years in the government service in Washington, 
five on his plantation in LeFIore County, Mississippi, and in 
1907 moved to Memphis and went into the real estate business. 
He and Miss Mary Clough married September 5, 1901. They 
have two children. John Q. Eaton, Junior, and I lough I aton 
During the war he was chairman of City Draft Board No. 5. 




S. M. McCALLUM 

Samuel Malcolm McCallum, retired capitalist, was born 
December 28, 1849, on the big Egypt Plantation which his 
father owned a few miles northeast of Raleigh. Tennessi i 
son of Malcolm and Mary (Thomas) McCallum. He went 
to college but says that he learned little of value there, add 
ing that for twenty-five years, without the loss of a day. he 
was in the school of hard knocks, where inexperience and 
poor equipment brought him many trials. He attributes his 
success largely to the fact that he lias never sought and seldom 
taken advice, confining his ventures to those lines which he 
has thought out for himself. At maturity he came to Mem- 
phis, where he has lived ever since, having spent every sum- 
mer of his life in Shelbj Coiintj and never having p 
doctor's hill At twent) years o( age he was a merchant and 
at forty-five he retired, investing in Memphis and Los Angeles 
property. He is a charter member of the Memphis Country 
(dull Inn does "not work at golf." He has never sought or 
held public office. Mr. McCallum ami Miss Annie C. Meachara 
were married in 1883. Two children. Duncan and Miss 
M.oili.i. blessed the union, hut both are now dead 



899 




J. C. PRICE 

James Calbert Price, banker. Batesville, Mississippi, was 
born December 31, 1856. in Newton, Dale County. Alabama, 
the son of Hardy William Brown and Jack Eliza Price. 
After having finished at the high school in Eufaula, Alabama, 
he worked on a farm from 1873 to 1880. when he went on the 
road as a traveling salesman, in which line he remained until 
1900. when he moved to Batesville and bought control of the 
Bank of Batesville. Since that time he has been one of the 
most active factors for the development of North Mississippi. 
He has organized thirteen banks in the State, organized the 
Batesville Spoke Factory, the Batesville Cotton Mill and the 
Batesville Ice Manufacturing Company. Now he is the owner 
of a controlling interest in the Farmers Savings Bank of 
Batesville and is its cashier. He is a member of the Missis- 
sippi grand lodge of Masons and of the finance committee of 
the Knights of Pythias. During Cleveland's administration he 
served as Indian trader for the Osage tribe at Hominy Post, 
Oklahoma. Mr. Price and Miss Ella Huggins were married 
May 18, 1884. Their children are Maupin Price. J. Calbert 
Price, Junior, Alice Price and Imogene Price. 




J. A. FOWLER 

Joseph Arthur Fowler, Memphis. Tennessee, was born in 
that city October 6. 1883. He was educated in the Memphis 
public schools until he reached the age of fourteen years, 
when necessity forced him into employment when, by chance, 
he became engaged in the electrical business. He spent the 
next twlve years with two concerns and devoted every oppor- 
tunity to the study of his line of work. In 1910 he entered into 
business for himself, establishing the Fowler Electric Com- 
pany, now one of the leading houses of its kind in the South. 
For many years he has held executive positions with national 
organizations with which his business is connected. Mr. Fow- 
ler has presided over practically all of the Masonic organiza- 
tions in Memphis, serving in 1918 as potentate of the Shrine 
and in 1919 as grand high priest of the grand chapter of 
Tennessee. He is a member of the First Methodist Church. 
Rotary Club. Colonial Country Club and has served as a 
director of the Chamber of Commerce. He has had an active 
part in nearly all the local war and charity drives. He and 
Miss Edith Carrington were married January 18, 1911. They 
have one child. Betsve Fowler. 



900 




J. E. PARE 

James Edward Parr, financier, Jonesboro, Arkansas, was 
born in tiiat city January 8, 1876, the son of Homer and Mar) 
Elizabeth (Sparks) Parr. At the age of twenty-one years he 
entered the banking line as a bookkeeper for the Citizens 
Bank, where he remained until 1911, when thai hank was 
converted to the First National Hank and he was elected 
cashier. He was with that institution until January 8, 1917, 
when he resigned to become active- vice-president <>i the Bank 
of Jonesboro, which position he has filled with signal succe 
since that time. He is also presideril of the Jonesboro I om- 
press Company and the United Insurance Vgencj (Ini I; 
directoi and secretary oi the V B. Jones Company, wholesale 
grocery, and the A. J. Scotl < ompany, ice cream manufactur- 
ers; secretary and treasurer of the Truman Farms Company, 

and the I :sboro l-iijit. Water >V Sewer Board, and a direi tor 

in the Nash Drug Company, Jonesboro Hardware I ompany, 
lonesboro Building & Loan Association, Bank of Nettleton 
Hank of Truman and Bank of Weiner, and an ardent advocate 
of better schools, better farms and better living conditions. 
Mr. Parr and Miss Floy Rogers were married July 5, 1905. 
They have no child. 




U. M. ROSE 

The late Judge Uriah M. Rose of [little Rock, Arkansas. 
for years leading lawyei of the South and equal of any man 
at the American bar. was horn in Marion County, Kentucky. 
March 5. 1834, the son of Doctor Joseph and Nancy (Simp- 
son) Rose. He died in Little Rock August 12. 1913. He 
received his education in Transylvania Law School in Ken- 
tucky, at the age of nineteen years was admitted to th< bat 
and moved to Batesville, Arkansas, where he practiced from 
1853 to 1861 and from that time at Washington, Arkansas, to 
1865, when he moved to Little Rock, lie served as chancellor 
from 1858 to 1865. He was one of the organizers of the 
American Bar Association, and its president in 1901. He 
held no other official position except by appointment of Presi- 
dent Roosevelt as a member of The Hague Peace I nbunal 
in 1907, where his thorough knowledge of the law in all it - 

ramifications, familiarity with all of the world's written his- 
tory, breadth of reading, depth of thinking and ability as a 
linguist made him the equal of any member of the tribunal, 
and an ornament to his country. He and Miss Margaret T. 

(iihhs were married October 25, 1853; 



901 




W. J. NORTHCROSS 

The late William James Xorthcross, for a quarter of a 
century one of the leading business men of Memphis, Tennes- 
see, longer one of its best citizens and for half of that time 
one of the most conscientious vestrymen of St. Luke's Epis- 
copal parish, was born in Marshall County, Mississippi, 
November 18. 1864, the son of J. M. and Elizabeth Jane 
(Dickey) Northcross. He was educated in the country 
schools there and later took a business course in Mem- 
phis, and during his entire life was a wide reader and 
close student of good literature. Mr. Xorthcross organized in 
1894 the W. J. Xorthcross Mantel & Grate Company. With 
practically no assistance he developed this into a splendid 
business of which he was the head until his death, December 
18, 1918, at which time he also was the president of the South- 
ern District Mantel & Tile Dealers Association. He was 
chairman of the committee which built the present St. Luke's 
Church building, was a member of the Chamber of Com- 
merce, Knights of Pythias. Elks and various lesser orders. 
Mr. Northcross and Miss Lee Wilson of Collierville, Tennes- 
see, were married January 9, 1889. Their children are: Wil- 
son J. and Leon M. Xorthcross. 




H. P. JOHNSON 

The late Harry Prince Johnson spent twenty-two years of 
his life in Memphis, each of them useful for the upbuilding of 
the city. He was born February 25, 1860, in Ontario. Canada, 
the son of the Reverend Colin C. (a canon of the Cathedral of 
St. Alban at Toronto, Ontario) and Helen (Clark) Johnson. 
At the age of eighteen he entered the Moulson Bank at Mon- 
treal, Province of Quebec. At twenty years of age he was 
manager of the bank's branch at St. Thomas, Ontario, and in 
1882 he moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, entering the cotton- 
seed oil business. In 1886 he was made manager of the South- 
ern Cotton Oil Company, and later district manager at Mem- 
phis, moving to this city in 1898. In 1904 he resigned from 
the company and formed the Union Sand & Material Com- 
pany, later consolidating it with the Missouri Portland Cement 
Company, of which he was vice-president and general manager 
until his death October 9, 1919. He was also president of the 
Broadway Coal & Ice Company. He was a member of Grace 
Episcopal Church, and also several social clubs. He married 
Miss Miriam Bell February 11, 1885. Their children are 
Helen, Felecia, Virginia and Mildred. 



902 




J. II. MALONE 

James Henry Malone, forfnei mayor, a leading lawyer and most 
patriotic citizen of Memphis, Tennessee, was born in Limestone County, 
Alabama, October 31, 1x51, the son of Franklin Jefferson and Mary 
I. mi (Hardin) Malone. He was educated in Shelby ( ounty, Tennessee, 
ami was graduated nun] the Cumberland University I. aw School at 
Lebanon, Tennessee, in 1X72. since which time In- has been a member 
of tin- Memphis liar. Elected on a reform ticket, he was mayoj Eoi 
four years following 1906, his most lasting public service being in the 
securing of the application of the front-fool paving ai t to the city. 




II. MORRIS 

Hiksi ii Morris, president of the Manhattan Savings Bank X Trusl 
Company, and senior member of the firm of II. Morris & Brother, was 
born in 1X48 in Spandau, Germany. He received his early education 
there and at the age of eighteen years went to work. II. engaged in 

the retail dry g Is business in 1869, in the manufacture of clothing 

in 1880. and since 1899 has been the head of the Manhattan Bank, one 
of the strongest institutions in the Mid-South. He is a member of 
the Rex Club and V. M. H. A., and director in the Cossitt Library. 
He and Miss Fannie Loeb married in 1880. Thev have one son. Bandi. 




DR. P. II. WOOD 

Doctor Percy H. Wood, one of the leading practitioners <>t medicine 

and surgery in Memphis. Tennessee, was born in this city January 27, 
1885, the son of Jacob M. and Blanche Wood. After having taken the 
course at the Memphis University School, he went to the Universitj 
of Pennsylvania, where he received his degree of doctor of medicine 
in 1910. He spent the following two years in St. Agnes' and St. t hris 
topher's hospitals in Philadelphia, and has been practicing in Memphis 
since 1913. He and Miss Amelia Russell were married November 25. 
1914. They have two children, Amelia and Percy. 




F. 1). FILLER 

Frank Darwin Fuller, Memphis, Tennessee, secretary and execu- 
tive head of the Tri-State Fair Association and member of the Slate 
Senate, was horn in Adrian, Michigan. February 9, 1869, tin son of 
George J. and Mary Augusta (Aldricll) Fuller. He was reared and 
educated in Nashville, Tennessee, and worked for a tune for the Louis- 
ville & Nashville Railroad and for C. F. Finery in Cleveland. Ohio. 
Aside from his great success as head of the Tri-State Fair, his main 
life work has been breeding fancy harness horses, cattle, lings ami 
sheep near Nashville, on his farm, which he sold in 1919. 



903 




W. W. McGINNIS 

Wiley Washington' McGinnis, merchant, Collierville, Tennessee, 
was born in Miller Station, Georgia, July 14, 1876. the son of Wilej 
Hinkle and Malinda (Miller) McGinnis. He was educated at a private 
school in Randolph, Alabama, and public school in Collierville. and in 
1898 started a lumber, hardware and paint business at Collierville. 
which he still conducts, with general contracting. He has built several 
Shelby County school buildings and most of the modern residences 
erected in Collierville in the past fifteen years. He is a Scottish Rite 
and Knight Templar Mason, and a Shriner. 




J. M. JONES 

James Monroe Jones, planter, and one of the oldest and most 
respected citizens of Fayette County, Tennessee, was born in Somer- 
ville. December 8, 1846, the son of Calvin Jones, who moved with his 
parents from North Carolina to Giles County, Tennessee, and then to 
Somerville in 1837. His mother was Millie (Williamson) Jones. 
Mr. Jones was educated in Somerville and Oxford, Mississippi; fought 
through the Civil War under General Forrest. He lives on his seven- 
teen-hundred-acre plantation west of Somerville. He was married 
first to Miss Anna Hortense Moody and later to Miss Laura Stainback. 




E. C. EOS WELL 

Eugene Carter Boswell, planter and stock raiser, Somerville 
Tennessee, was born November 5. 1857, at Macon, Tennessee, the son 
of Dixon Simpson and Mary Boswell. He farmed at Macon until 
1892 when he moved to the present plantation, eleven miles northwest 
of Somerville, where not only cotton and corn are produced on the 
the thousand acres, but also there are herds of Shorthorn cattle, Soutn- 
down sheep, goats and hogs. Mr. Boswell served three terms as sheriff, 
always fearless but kind. He is an ardent lover of the chase. He was 
married in 1891 to Miss Lillie Cannon, who died in 1902. 




LOUIS LIPSKY 

Louis Lipskv, merchant and planter. Somerville. Tennessee, was 
born March 1, 1870, in Suwalkie, Poland, the son of Joseph and Pauline 
Lipsky. He came to the United States in 1884, locating in St. Louis, 
then coming to Memphis, where he peddled notions and ran a small 
store. In 189.5, he moved to Somerville where he and his brother since 
have operated a large up-to-date store and conduct a two-thousand-acre 
plantation. He is a Shriner, and a member of the Memphis Congre- 
gation Children of Israel. He and Miss Hattie Skaller were married 
January 10, 1898. They have four children. 



904 



3. ®. ftfjomas 




(^OHN TALBERT THOMAS, Grenada, Mississippi, president 
of the Grenada Bank and its dozen or more branches located 
in upper Central Mississippi, recognized as one of the most 
successful bankers in the Mid-South and generally classed as 

the most useful man in the various communities where his 

( &&S^W£SW hanks are located, is a native of Grenada County, having been 

born May 29, 1860. a few miles west of the City of Grenada, the son of 

Mr. and Mrs. A. V. 1!. Thomas. Mr was educated in the public schools at 

home and then took a course in a business college. Returning to Mississippi, 

where his father was clerk of the Chancery Court, Mr. Thomas went into 

the office as deputy, later becoming county court clerk and still later clerk of 

the Chancery Court. He was serving in the latter capacity in 188') when the 

Grenada Bank was organized with Mr. J. \Y. Griffis, one of the leading men 

of the community, as president and Mr. Thomas as cashier. The bank grew 

steadily until 191)7 when Mr. Griffis died and Mr. Thomas succeeded him as 

president. Its growth again was steady until 1916 when the calamity of the 

cotton boll weevil hit Grenada County. It was a bolt fatal to any but the 

strongest of souls, for practically the only resource of the county was the 

cotton crop and that year the crop fell to about ten per cent of what was 

normal. It was then that Mr. Thomas showed the mettle that was in him. 

Others knew that the fertile soil of Grenada and the neighboring counties would 

raise other things beside cotton, but with the bulk of them this knowledge ceased 

with giving advice. Mr. Thomas's bank bought $3,000 worth of wheat and 

clover seed and placed it at the disposal of the farmers of Grenada County. 

His next bold stroke was to lend to any boy, white or black, recommended 

by the county agent, enough money with which to purchase a pure bred 

Duroc-Jersey or Poland-China sow; and to any girl, similarly recommended, 

enough to buy a thoroughbred cockerel and four pullets. The loan was direct 

to the boy or girl, without security and without interest prior to maturity, but 

each borrower had to agree to plant and cultivate one acre of feed stuff under 

the direction of the county agent ; sell enough of that or the produce of the 

live stock to settle the debt, and report at the end of lie year the result of the 

venture. The next year the system was extended to all of the branch banks 

and the results in the material development of the country were wonderful, 

while the effect was astounding. ( inly two of the notes to the bank were 

unpaid, one where the boy died and the other where the pig died. 'Hie bank 

canceled both notes. Mr. Thomas and Mis-, Ruth Jones were married in 

May, 1891. They have three children, two sons and one daughter. 



905 



jh. m. mutt 



:.\X DANIEL MILLER, Marianna, Arkansas, one of the lead- 
ing manufacturers of hardwood lumber in the South and also 
Mj|u\ one of the most prominent factors for the development of 
\&) the lower portion of the St. Francis Basin, was born Novem- 
ber 13, 1874, in Paola, Kansas. He received his early educa- 
tion there and went to the Paola High School for a time, 
but at the age of fourteen years, he decided that he would make a fortune for 
himself and with thai end in view went to Kansas City, Missouri, where he 
found a position in the day time in the office of a coal company, and at night 
went to school. About the time that he went to Kansas City, the family moved 
from Paola to Marianna, where his father went into the lumber business. The 
lad remained in Kansas City for three years, where he completed his education, 
but at the end of that time he failed to see in the immediate future there 
the fortune which he had gone there to seek, and hence, in 1891, he followed 
the family South and went into the lumber business at Marianna with his 
father. During the eleven years that they were associated together, they 
steadily pushed the business until at the death of his father, in 1902, the busi- 
ness was recognized as one of the most substantial in that section. Since that 
time Mr. Miller has been at the head of it. The degree of efficiency, indefatig- 
able industry and sterling honesty that he has put into it has made it grow 
by leaps and bounds until now the establishment occupies fifty acres of land 
with a modern equipment which includes two saw mills of the most approved 
design and a shook factory. The output of the mills is some twenty million 
feet of lumber each year and the aggregate of the business done by the con- 
cern is fully a million and a half dollars. To supply this mill, Mr. Miller 
owns seven thousand acres of timbered lands in the St. Francis Basin. He 
has removed the bulk of the timber from half of this tract and is developing 
it into plantations. The remainder of the tract contains virgin timber. Even 
the development and conduct of a business of this size was not able to con- 
sume all of the time and capacity of Mr. Miller. In addition to his mill and 
lumber business, he is the able head of the Bank of Marianna, one of the 
strong financial institutions of the St. Francis Basin ; of the Peoples Electric 
Company of Marianna and of the Lions Club. He is the vice-president of 
the Marianna Building & Loan Association, and also of the Soudan Corpora- 
tion, which was recently organized to acquire and operate the noted old plan- 
tation of that name. Mr. Miller also was active in all war work in Lee County. 
He and Miss Mildred Wilson of Wellsville, Missouri, were married Octo- 
ber 1, 1901. After her death, Mr. Miller and Miss Maude Maitland Bair 
were married in 1915. His children are: Max D., Jr., Mildred Wilson, Ella 
May and Glenn Utley. 



')(K, 



Jofju Cumngfjam 




|OHN CUNINGHAM, Arlington, Tennessee, merchant and 
capitalist, leader in every movement for the development of 
his section of the county, heavily interested in several of the 

large financial concerns of Memphis and also having many 
other wide investments, is a native of North Carolina. He 
was horn in Rockingham County, July 31, 1859, the son of 
Alexander and Mary Laura (Callaway) Cuningham. lie received his early edu- 
cation in Danville, Virginia. When hut a lad, he had the misfortune to lose 
both of his parents. His uncle, Mr. J. M. Callaway, had moved to Tennessee 
and became a man of considerable affairs in the northwestern portion of Fay- 
ette County, where the station on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad was named 
for him. Mr. Cuningham also came west in 187.5 and located at Callawav. 
From there he completed his education by going first to Webb Brothers at Cul- 
leoka, Tennessee; then to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and 
last to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He had finished his education 
at the age of nineteen years and returned to West Tennessee. Choosing a busi- 
ness career, he started at the bottom of the ladder. He has climbed steadily, 
rung by rung, to the top. His first work was in the neighboring town of Mason, 
wdiere he clerked in the drug store of Doctor T. J. Reid for a year. There he 
learned the rudiments of commercial business, but in order to fit himself more 
completely for that sphere in life, he came to Memphis and took the course in 
Professor T. A. Leddin's business college. Then he went to Covington, Ten- 
nessee, where again he clerked in a drug store for six months, that time for 
Gillespie & Payne. Returning to Callaway, where his uncle then was operating a 
large saw mill and several farms, Mr. Cuningham worked for him from 1882 
to 1888. In the meantime, Mr. Cuningham had come into possession of $7,500 
which he had inherited from the estate of his father. Using this as a founda- 
tion, he has budded rapidly upon it until for a number of years he has been one 
of the leading figures in the financial life of his community. In 1888 he bought 
the mill, farms and entire interests of his uncle and operated them with signal 
success at Gallaway until 1904, when he moved to the wider field at Arlington, 
where he has lived ever since as one of its most prominent, active and useful 
citizens. When he left Fayette County he was a member of the County Court. 
Since that time he has never sought or held public office. He is a director in 
the Arlington Bank & Trust Company; vice-president of the McCravv, Perkins & 
Webber Company, cotton factors, and a director in the Currie-McCraw Com- 
pany, wholesale grocers, of Memphis. Mr. Cuningham and Miss Bell Battle 
were married January 6, 1886. They have four children: Alexander Marion; 
Miss Laura, now Mrs. M. G. Burrow of Tunica, Mississippi; William Battle, 
and Miss BelPCuningham of Arlington. 



907 



(General Snbex 

Page 

Agricultural Empire 51 

Cotton in Mid-South 57 

Foreword } 

( leology of Mid-South 23 

History, the Mid-South in 5 

I tardwoods in Mid-South (,7 

Levees 38 

Map of Mid-South 73 



3nbex to ptograpfjies 



Page 

Abbay, R. F 656 

Adams, I )ean 853 

Aderholdt, T. S 296 

.Alexander, E, E 476 

Allen, 1. M 608 

Allen, |. S 886 

Allen, Dr. J. T 843 

Anderson, E, L 140 

Anderson, II. B 831 

Anderson, S. B 145 

Andrews. T. B 825 

Appling. A. R 887 

Armstrong, W. P 684 

Ashcroft, T. C 891 

Avent, T. E 667 

Bailey, M. G 895 

Banks, Lem 827 

Baptist, R. B 881 

Barboro, A. S 832 

Barnett, C. T 862 

Barnwell, I.'ll 688 

Bates. W. H 613 

Baugh. T. O 397 

Baviess. W. B 127 

BeareR. 1 750 

Bledsoe. O. F 212 

Bledsoe. O. F.. Jr 217 

Bodman, E. T 170 

Homer. |. ( )' 878 

Bond, R. X 854 

Boswell, I".. (' 904 

Bouldin, M. 1 744 

Bowers, D. C 625 

Brackin. I. M 873 

Brashears, W. I 470 

Brewer. Earl 598 

Brode, F. W 718 

Brodnax, G. T 630 



Page 

Brough. C. II 720 

Brown. L. E 151 

Brown, J. N 169 

Brown, R. 1 343 

Burrow, A. K 133 

Button, A. O 469 

Calhoun. S. L 560 

Callicott, C. G 403 

Campbell, Slaughter 307 

Canada, J. W 1 52 

Canale, P. M 724 

Carroll, T. B 855 

Caraway, T. H 716 

Carr, R. F 175 

Cartwright, J. B 808 

Chandler, W. C 752 

Chears, H. R 880 

Clarke, J". P 649 

Colby, II. R 391 

Cohn, B. 1 702 

Cohn, Harrv 856 

Collins, T. R 566 

Cook. I.! P 895 

Corky. S. A 559 

CostonJ. T 254 

Counts, William 875 

Covington, W. T 722 

Cox. W. A 756 

Craft. Henry 182 

Crawford, ]'. A 380 

Crawford. W. .1 698 

Crawley, W. A 284 

Crook. Dr. 1.1 863 

Crump. D. H 176 

(rump. 1". M 181 

Culberhouse, G. W 754 

Cuningham, |ohn 907 

Currie, R. F. 572 



Brooks, Dr. J. C. . . 



.2(I6-J*.toir>abnev. T. C, 14(. 



909 



INDEX TO BIOGRAPHIES— Continued 



Page 

Dalton, E. A 554 

Darnell, R. J 662 

Davies, Dr. J. F 673 

Davis, C. R 499 

Davis, H. J 410 

Dean, C. C 409 

Dean. }. M 888 

Dean, L. G 308 

Deeth, Tohn 577 

Denton] M. E 271 

Dennon, Dave 870 

Dewey, W. C 404 

Dick, W. H 313 

Dodds, S. L 248 

Douglas, Dr. T- P 839 

Driver, W. J." 187 

Early, W. C 824 

Early, W. R 415 

Eaton, J. Q 899 

Eberhaft. C. S 844 

Ellis, E. M 881 

Ellis, O. M 892 

Everett, Dr. H. B 748 

Fagin, Dr. W. R 692 

Faison, G. W 758 

Falls, L. D 846 

Falls, [. N 601 

Falls, T.W 845 

Fant, R. T 211 

Farley, J. W 565 

Feemster, Dr. L. C 506 

Fitzhugh, G. T 80 

Fletcher, Leslie 416 

Flippin, J. H 726 

Fly, J. M 882 

Fowler, J. A 900 

Fox, J. W 158 

Fuller, F. D 903 

Gailor, T. F 86 

Gaines, L. H 320 

Gannaway, Herbert 833 

Garnett, R. C 553 

Garrard, W. M 319 

Gates, Elias 218 

Geers, E. F 889 

Goldsmith, lacob 188 

Goltman, Dr. Max 888 

Goodbar, J. B 493 

Goodbar, f. M 589 

Goshorn, J. O 547 

Griffin, H. S 882 

Grittman, Fred 548 

Grosvenor, C. N 194 

Gwinn, L. E 760 



Page 

Halev, I. L 487 

Hall, J. F 857 

Hall, J. R 879 

Hall. L. M 762 

Hall. W. P 865 

Halle, A. A 893 

Hallidav. W. P 193 

Ham, I. S 892 

Hanson, C. C 482 

Harris, F. R 858 

Hawthorne, f.C 872 

Havlev, W. H 867 

Hays, J. W 700 

Henning, Dr. B. G 595 

Henning, Dr. D. M 385 

Herrin, C. H 422 

Herrin, W. K 164 

Herstein, W. R 696 

High, S. J 139 

Hill. F. F 98 

Hinton. T. T 325 

Hoffa, W. B 421 

Holland, W. P 128 

Holmes, J. E 728 

Hopson, H. H 386 

Houck, O. K 590 

Houston. W. H 898 

Hughes, Allen 878 

Hughes. C. C 542 

Humes, L. C 481 

Humphrey, W. R 224 

Humphreys, Hugh 871 

Hunter, T. F 816 

Irbv. J.H 889 

Irwin", R. C 541 

Isele, T. A 893 

Tackson, T. II 880 

James, T. G 104 

lanes, L. P 764 

Jenkins, J. T 770 

Jennings, A. E 97 

Johnson, H. P 902 

Tohnson, J. H 488 

Johnson, W. C 109 

Tohnson, W. W 768 

Jones, H. K 686 

Tones, J. M 904 

Jones, S. M 326 

Jones, W. C 766 

Jones, W. S 879 

'Jordan, R. 1 680 

Keesler. S. R 536 

Killough. O. N 730 

Kinsr, T. B 836 



910 



INDEX TO BIOGRAPHIES— Continued 



Kirk, ]. M 

Kyser, \Y. I) 

La Croix, R. F 

Lacy, Dr. W. | 

Lake, R. P...". 

Lane, W. T 

I .ange, A. C 

Lawler, J.W 

Layne, M. E 

Leake, M. E 

Leathernian, S. R 

Ledyard. J. II 

Lee, lames 

Lee, R. E 

Le Master, E. B 

Leroy, Dr. Louis 

1 .ewis, Mi irris 

Lipsky, Louis 

Litty, H. II 

Livingston, II. J 

Loeb, Henry 

Love, G. C 

Love. H. M 

Lovewell, J. H 

Lowrance, P. B 

McCallum, S. M 

McGraw, C. T 

McDonald, S. F 

McElrov, Dr. I. B 

McFarland, 1.. B 

McGee, B. O 

McGehec, Dr. J. 1 ... J r 

McGinnis, W. W. .'. 

McSweyn, 1. F 

McWilliams, R. N 

Macrae, G. W 

Mahannah, A. E 

Major, S. C 

Mallow, W. B 

Mai. me, 1. H 

Marks, J. D 

Marks, Leopold 

Marshall. A. 1 

Massey, J. T 

Martin, j. D 

Matthew's, R. L 

Matthews, W. H 

Meux. Dr. G. W 

Miles. 1.. P 

Millen, Mrs. M. II 

Miller, B. R 

Miller. M. D 

Minor, II. D 

Mixon, H. 1 



'age 

427 
890 
736 
332 
883 
674 
690 
428 
331 
433 
302 
847 
602 
122 
822 
8 l >(. 
772 
904 
883 
834 
535 
278 
894 
859 
266 
s< i« i 

661 

235 
734 
829 
229 
774 
904 
200 
199 
74 
350 
706 
584 
903 
253 
f>44 
530 

:•>:->? 

732 

884 
157 
355 
837 
583 
887 
906 
823 
434 



Page 

Monteverde, F. 1 77H 

Mooney, C. P. | 134 

Moore, Herbert 776 

Moore, |. I 440 

Moorman, II. C 884 

Morris, < ieorge 704 

Morris, Hirsch 903 

Morrison, II. A 544 

Morrison, S. S 860 

Morrow, R. G (>14 

Moselev. A. | 549 

Mullens, E.J. 230 

Myrick, E. K 780 

Nash, Dr. W. B 782 

Neely, A. D 679 

Newburger, Joseph 103 

Nichols, W. B 439 

Nickey, S. M 163 

Noel, E. F 708 

Northcross, W. | 902 

Orgill, Frederick 596 

( >ut/en, Andrew 784 

Paine. Rowlett 826 

Parker, W. D 529 

Parks. W. B 356 

Parr, ]. E 901 

Parrish, II. J 885 

Partee, C. W., Sr 445 

Peel, H. H 861 

Peete.J. Y 890 

Pepper. A. M 786 

Pepper, ]. R 877 

Peres. Hardwig 849 



I. II. 



848 

Peres, J. J 874 

Perkins, A. G 885 

Pfeil.C. O 116 

Pharr, H. N 643 

Phillips, S. H 830 

Pigford.C. E 788 

Pittman, F. L 790 

Pitts. W. T 866 

Portlock. S. W 301 

Prescott, W. I 710 

Price, C. A 828 

Price. [. C 900 

Prichard.W. G 524 

Pride. Dr. W. T 746 

Proutt, F.G 868 

Pvles.W'ill 361 

Ransom, W. A 236 

Ray, Uriah 523 

Reese, A. B 362 

Reese, Colyar 794 



911 



INDEX TO BIOGRAPHIES— Continued 



Page 

Reese, H. H 638 

Reese, Mrs. Isaac 792 

Reeves, W. T 367 

Rembert, Sam 451 

Remmel, H. L 796 

Riddick, T. K 92 

Ritchie, W. A 446 

Roberts, \V. D 841 

Robins, D. W 277 

Robinson, Clyde 518 

Rose, U. M 901 

Roseboom, Mrs. H. D 578 

Rudisill, f. H 682 

Rush, J. V 838 

Russell, D. M 620 

Ryan, P. A 392 

Salmon, T. E 475 

Salsbury, L. K 260 

Samelson, Ike 869 

Saunders, Clarence 91 

Scharff, Abe 810 

Schlecht, G. F 338 

Scott, Charles 607 

Shannon, CR 898 

Sibley, Boiling 712 

Simmons, A. f 373 

Simmons, W. W 295 

Simonson, S. E 289 

Simonton, C. B 814 

Sivley, C L 241 

Slack, Dr. W. M 812 

Smart, T. H 379 

Smith, Bolton 876 

Smith, CD 85 

Smith, CR 457 

Smith, F. H 517 

Smith, G. K 668 

Smith, J. D 290 

Smith, K.A 864 

Stark, J. E 223 

Stratton, L. M 79 

Solomon, J. L 283 

Steinberg, Samuel 894 

Stovall, W. H 626 

Strain, C R 374 

Straub, Sebastian 458 

Swain, W. B 452 

Swift, W. A 571 

Swoope, T.K 897 



Page 

Sykes, E. L 368 

Taylor, A. F 818 

Taylor, Mrs. A. F 820 

Tavlor, A. R 876 

Taylor, Dr. E. \V 851 

Taylor, G. T 512 

Thomas, J. T 905 

Thompson, C. C 850 

Thompson, C. \Y 877 

Tomlinson, H. D 738 

Toombs, Dr. P. W 242 

Towner, Dr. J. D 463 

Townes, C. L 637 

Townes, ) . A 632 

Townes, R. C 247 

Turlev. T. J 840 

Turner, G. S 852 

Turner, O. 1 798 

Tutwiler, f. H 842 

Uzzell, J. E 511 

Vance, C.B 886 

Walker, J. M 740 

Walsh, Anthony 631 

Walsh, J. T.... 259 

Walton, H. L 265 

Walton, f. H 505 

Watson,'}. S 500 

Webb, G.'T 742 

Webster, W. A 804 

Weiler, A 806 

West, N. D 891 

White, D. H 314 

Willingham, |.T 694 

Willis, H. F." 835 

Wilson, J. C 121 

Wilson, R. E. L 110 

Wilson, R. E. L., Jr 115 

Wingfield, W. S 494 

Winkelman, H. T 800 

Winkelman, J. A 802 

Winston, W. T 897 

Withers, S. A 205 

Witzmann, Emil 655 

Wood, Dr. P. H 903 

Woollard, D. B 464 

Wright, C. E 619 

Wright, Moorehead 272 

Yerkes, H. C 896 

Zahn, Otto 714 



912 



J EC 6-1949 



N- 



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^f> yp ^P "f 



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v 






1 > 



& 



<?> 



<F 



■ ; 






























^ 












